Native Students Stepping Forward:
Dollar General Adult Education Program
2014 – Ongoing
About The Program
The American Indian College Fund’s Native Students Stepping Forward: Dollar General Adult Education Program, previously known as the Dollar General American Indian and Alaska Native Literacy and Adult Education Program, addresses a critical gap in the education pathway, empowering underserved Native people to gain the foundational literacy skills needed to prepare for and obtain high school equivalency (HSE) credentials and pursue post-secondary education and meaningful career pathways.
Like the Dollar General Literacy Foundation (DGLF), the program’s primary funder, supporting it at up to $300,000 annually, Native Students Stepping Forward is committed to helping individuals of all ages receive the educational foundation they need to succeed in post-secondary education opportunities or the workforce. Through tribal college and university (TCU)-implemented programming, this work seeks to strategically expand services and resources to achieve measurable outcomes in ABE progression and HSE program enrollment, retention, and completion. In a continuous effort to value the whole student, the program aims to assess and address students’ needs to succeed, encourages culturally relevant programming elements, promotes visibility of HSE students at TCUs, and supports college and career readiness programming components. TCU grantee partners also regularly engage across the cohort in a Community of Practice (CoP) to share best practices and challenges, strengthen programming, and examine holistic impact on students and communities.
High School Equivalency Visibility Project
The American Indian College Fund engaged three TCU high school equivalency (HSE) partners for the HSE Visibility Project, featuring the stories of HSE students and graduates in a social media campaign throughout winter and spring of 2024.
2022 High School Equivalency Program Convening
Grantees
Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe University
Northwest Indian College
Oglala Lakota College
Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College
Salish Kootenai College
Sinte Gleska University
Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute
Tohono O'odham Community College
Related Blogs
Well-Founded Faith in GED Students
By Hannah Gonzales, American Indian College Fund Program Assistant Note: This blog post was intended to be published before we found ourselves amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Much of the GED/HSE programming at TCUs that we support has halted as a result of societal and...
Sinte Gleska University Offers GED Tutoring at Adult Correctional Facility
By Sherman Marshall, SGU Adult Basic Education Director Editor’s Note: This blog post was submitted before the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic ensued. The pandemic’s ramifications have halted much of GED programming and testing at TCUs, though project directors and GED...
Community Recruitment Events: Comedy brings in students at SIPI
Higher ed has a student enrollment problem. Nationally, student enrollment is down 10% in the last decade, with New Mexico rates at nearly twice that, even though colleges made improvements to serve students better than ever.
First Steps to New Beginnings
This winter season has been a cold one, especially for Arizona and the Tohono O’odham Nation. The sun shines and the skies are open and blue. One would think it is a warm sunny day until they walk out into the open and discover that it is 42 degrees.
