The majority of high school graduates who enter the Majuro college go into “developmental level one” — the lowest academic section at the college — because they come out of high school with fourth grade academic ability.
While this group has accounted for 60 percent of the college’s incoming students, historically fewer than one out of 10 of these students have made it to graduation.
But in the last two years, the College of the Marshall Islands has more than doubled the number of developmental level one students who are graduating.
This is the latest success for the college that recently had full accreditation restored by the U.S. Western Association of Schools and Colleges after being on the brink of losing it.
“We think we have a handle at the developmental level one,” said CMI President Wilson Hess. “We are now getting students out of development level one (and into credit level) in three semesters so they are on a level playing field (with other students).”
Another reason this is good news, Hess said, is that from 2000-2006, it was taking from three to as many as 17 semesters for developmental level one students to get to credit level — with the median being six semesters to get to credit.
But the last two years, the average time was cut to three semesters.
“This shorter period (to get into college-level courses) makes a big difference in people’s lives,” Hess said. “More can get through the door and more get to be successful.”
With the majority of students coming out of local high schools testing at about the fourth grade level academically it means CMI has had to devote a major effort to its “developmental” program to bring the students up to an academic level where they can take credit (college) level courses.
Changes at the college over the past several years now appear to be paying off, according to college data.
“We’ve fixed things that were structurally wrong with the program,” Hess said.
One roadblock for students who have to spend many semesters doing remedial studies before getting to credit courses has been access to U.S. Pell scholarship grants to pay for their college courses.
Previously, Pell funding was limited to 30 credits, not the 42 required in the developmental program.
“That’s now been resolved,” Hess said.
