Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified committee staff/AV technician]: We're live, sir. We are live. Okay. I've got next week's agenda. But welcome, and always be here.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Hello? So

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: Okay. We'll be introducing students in a little bit. Would you like them up here with me or should I

[Hannah Dubrilovic (Student, CCV Early College - Montpelier)]: miss works for you to do this?

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: The hot seat. Let's do that. Let's bring two chairs up here. That works for all chairs for you two. I apologize. I had made you for sure at lunch, so I'll give you lunch. Well, I am glad and grateful to be here today, especially with the snow coming in. We'll keep this tight and let folks get on the road to where they need to be. For the record, my name is Carol Ranbier. I'm the executive director of the McClure Foundation. We are a long time affiliate of the Vermont Community Foundation that focuses on career pathways. Really a lot of the things that help connect young people with Vermont's most promising jobs. So you've probably seen different iterations of this that we've produced with property labor over the years. Would love to invite you both to share your name and your account.

[Aidan Hall (Student, Proctor; Early College alum/Champlain College)]: My name's Aidan Hall. I'm coming down from Procter of Vermont. My

[Hannah Dubrilovic (Student, CCV Early College - Montpelier)]: name is Hannah Dubrilovic, and I'm a resident of Barrie. Awesome.

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: So, the Memorial Foundation, we have been spending time this past year asking students around the state to talk to us about what it is they want adults to, How they want adults to talk to them about careers and planning for life after high school. So we have some of the themes here with us if you want to take a look. They're really just good reminders. Maybe there's something there that pushes on an assumption that you have. But when we talk with young people about what it is they wanted, especially young people who don't currently have a plan, young people who may be struggling in high school academically or mentally or socially, and people who may be approaching senior year having completed, after all, the high school graduation requirements they need, And young people who maybe need a low risk way to try and pack. What we consistently hear is that young people are looking for flexibility in where and why we win. That's not surprising to us at the North American Foundation. We've been supporting the ethical and meaningful implementation of different components of the flexible pathways bill since it was passed in 2015. That includes things like personalized learning plans and work based learning, dual enrollment, and early college. And we're here today to really lift up the state's early college program as one of those long term flexible pathways, to share what we're seeing, what the data says, and what the end of the world's experience in this pathway is. And what has become clear to us at the Maltimore Foundation, having been in this issue space for a decade, kind of steeped in some of the national research around it. And especially the national movement around purposeful pathways, is that accelerated pathways that route through public college in particular, and community college especially, have a really special role in serving students for this opportunity. Historically, about half of the, or over half of the early college students in the state have enrolled at CCD. And the early college program is now the first part of a now built supported pathway to an accelerated debt free associate degree called the Freedom of Promise that's really opening doors to a lifetime of opportunity for young things. So, we are here sharing what we've voiced today across the building do a couple of things. One is just to share a reminder of the intent of the flexible pathways legislation because it was passed so long ago now that the original intent was threefold. It was to support more young people graduating from high school, to support more young people ready to continue, ready for college and career training, and support more young people actually continuing on. That feels especially important right now when Vermont's high school tuition rates, in addition to post secondary tuition rates, are the lowest in New England.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: And when you finish, when a student's finish, maybe you could tell us anything about the McClure Foundation. I'd be

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: happy to. Accelerated pathways and the things that help young people see their cultures and as things to be hopeful about and assess the patient for value as one part of our grant making. In addition to that, we also fund things like educator workforce development, service to career pathways, and other things that help build workforce development and career pathway systems. We really, as a foundation, just try to invest in bright spots and good models while also digging into the related systems complexities. And around this issue, are some related systems complexities and the conversations in this building, on this program have, I think, rightfully focused on them. And it's really important to balance that with the bright spot of where we're seeing helpful data and what student experience is like. I want to share just a couple of those bright spots in terms of data, and then pass it over to the students. So, since the Free Degree Promise was announced back four years ago, CCV has seen triple the number of low income students accessing college, and has seen triple the number of program completers persisting near full time towards their associate degrees. This year's early college cohort is 50% low income. That's higher than the peer rated H-twelve general population. But most importantly, the students on the pathway are really succeeding academically. This past semester, the early college cohort had a 90% course success rate and record breaking overall GPA of 3.2. This past June, CCD graduated. It was the largest cohort ever of teenagers with debt free associate degrees. It's like 70 plus young people graduating an average of one year out of school from all corners of the state, 50% work first and family to complete college. For Vermont, that is a scale that matters, right? Especially when the broader context is the high school completion of secondary continuation declines and our positioning relative to other states in New England. So, we attribute youth success in this pathway really to two things. The first is that this program, as it's defined by the state, as it's provided by CCV, is not what the field nationally calls random acts of dual enrollment. It's a really purposeful pathway that has a lot of supports built in. Embedded academic and career advising, integrated work based learning, direct student support. So, it really checks the quality markers that we've looked for around accelerated pathways and programs. And the second is that CCB, as a community college, just has a really strong ground record of supporting students of all backgrounds. Accessibility is a core value and career pathways is a core focus. And I think the most interesting thing for us over the past four years in administering and supporting this program alongside CCD is is that this program builds on a lot of things that already exist in the state. So it builds on the state's early college program. It builds on the eight zero two opportunity grant program, which is an incredible thing for Vermonters that make CCD free for families making up $200,000 a year. They build on Cal and Vermont State Grant. And what it does is it expands eligibility for this free community college for this very specific population of transitioning issue, young people graduating from high school who have taken the State's Early College Program. They say it's not open to everyone, and you can choose any degree program available in CCB. So what that does financially, right, is that it extends eligibility for financial support to moderate and higher income families. But when we actually see where the enrollment patterns are shifting, it's among low income students, what that tells us is that messaging matters, wraparound supports matter, and choice of institutional partner matters. Right? And this we'll see this across the country in different ways, but when you take universal access and you carry it with the same access institution, community college, and you really provide this wraparound supports, and there's no time frame. You don't have to know how much your household makes.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: You don't have to assume that

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: that won't change for years. Right? We've really seen some magic in terms of folks letting go of this deeply palpable girl story of all that she

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: has learned.

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: So we're feeling encouraged. I'd love I think the other thing I will say is that every young person has different needs. From many, and probably most young people, the right match for their senior year won't be this that way, will be the traditional high school experience. For others, it may be for a technical education or kind of sweep that version of what community or work based learning might be. But for a relatively small percentage of high school seniors, and I would pay that about 5%, this pathway, as it routes through public institutions, is truly a future, staying connected to learning and connected to a purposeful plan. So, are really excited to share some student stories. We've had a lot of students in the building today and some have concerns about the snow, but we are so lucky to have these two with us. So, I'd love to turn it over to them to explain to you why they chose this pathway and how it's connected to

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: a purposeful pathway. Welcome. Let me just ask you to just give us your name for the record and the floor is yours.

[Hannah Dubrilovic (Student, CCV Early College - Montpelier)]: All right, well, name is Hannah Dubrevovich. I'm doing early college at CCB Montpelier campus. I am currently enrolled in four courses and I only take one online because I prefer going in person. And I have absolutely loved it. I love the courses. I like my teachers. I like the resources. And I also like feeling productive with my time. A big reason why I chose CCV was because I didn't feel like my high school, no offense to Spaulding, but I didn't feel that it was going give me the same opportunities as disclosure, I have two grandsons. One

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: of them will be going to Norwich for a senior year. Oh, nice. Some familiarity with these programs.

[Hannah Dubrilovic (Student, CCV Early College - Montpelier)]: Yeah. No, it's great. I chose CCB just more out of closeness and also a couple of my other friends decided to do early college at CCB as well. And it's been great. I've gotten almost all of my prerequisites done for nursing. The last one I have to take is microbiology, which I'm doing over the summer. And next year I'm going to be going to Vermont State University Randolph to do my accelerated nursing degree. And I only have hands on classes to do nursing classes because I've already taken so many. Actually today I looked on the website for VTSU and they told me that it had a little program completion bar and it showed me that I was already halfway completed with my program for next year and I'm like, this is great. But I absolutely love CCB. I love early college. I recommend it to anyone. I personally am not doing a free degree promise, but I do have some friends who are looking into that. One of my friends is studying business, and I know she's looking into that free degree promise. And I do think if we, you know, if we can, we should try to keep it around. Because it provides a good opportunity, and college is expensive for everyone. Know, they would say, you know, it's based off of your parents, you know, but at the end of the day, that debt comes back to us as students and that becomes my debt one day, you know, when my parents are like, Hey, this is your bill to pay. You have your career. So that's why I love early college. I recommend it. I feel ahead of where I'm supposed to be right now because of early college, And that's a very good feeling to feel prepared for college and nursing school because I was pretty nervous. But now I feel like I have a good understanding of how to navigate that coursework and it's taught me, you know, time management. It's taught me what are college expectations like. And, you know, I still had opportunities to be a part of my high school, you know, like math club, National Honor Society, like I still have that involvement, but I get to go off, do my own thing, have time to take classes and also have time to have a job outside of school and make my own money. And so I truly recommend early college for anybody.

[Aidan Hall (Student, Proctor; Early College alum/Champlain College)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We hope you'll stay in for lunch. Need nurses. Yes, we do.

[Aidan Hall (Student, Proctor; Early College alum/Champlain College)]: All right. My name's Ian Hall. Well, I'm not currently a member of the Harvard College or Free Degree Program. I did graduate from that whole track this last summer, technically. I'm currently a junior at Chittenden College. I mainly want to say that I joined the three degree promise in the early college program as a whole, mainly because it gives me some of the opportunities. Senator Tweaks might not like this for second, but it's his hometown. Procter is such a small town. Our high school, my graduating class was, think, 22 people. I didn't have much for opportunities. Over the field, I loved to go into mainly system administration and cybersecurity as a whole. The closest thing I had for any sort of resources during high school was a simple program class that I took in seventh grade. Early college allowed me to take, actually allowed me to take interest in that and explore those interests on top of, you know, getting my senior requirements out of the way, and getting my first year of, you know, iPad, an associate's degree out of the way. And I've also found that the whole program itself has allowed me a lot more flexibility. As she was saying, you know, college is expensive. And that kind of, to me, if I remember going through the normal route of graduating high school and starting college, I think it definitely would have put that mindset of, I need to stay focused, I need to, like, be hypervigilant about my college experience, which wouldn't allow me to double things I've done so far. I've been able to pick up, you know, a nice little hobby in photography, because I wasn't too overstressed about learning and overdoing everything that I have to do at once, because if I do that, I was able to further go into my love of history, all because I wasn't, you know, bound by, you have to do well, otherwise you're gonna be a thousand jobs in your desk. This whole thing has also prepared me for my current program at Champaign, which is still preparing me to migrate to the local area. I'm planning on staying in the area. If you've got Burlington, probably still in the Welland area, mainly, God, Casella is, you know, one of the large companies of the area, and I know that recently they've started to, I believe, start to partner with Champlain College in regards to looking for internships and all that. Being able to get that straight out the, right out the door, getting my degree, being immediately have the opportunity to be there, is definitely gonna be so nice. I'll be able to, you know, stay at home, I'll be able to get my foot in the door for the area.

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: Mhmm. I'm hearing a theme in both of your stories, right? I think this generation is smartly cautious about death, college death, right? What parents are holding, right? Ruby is another degree promise student who is here today who said she wanted to go to college, but she didn't know what she wanted to study. And the idea of taking out debt without a plan felt crazy. Right? And so what the early college program allowed for her was a lower risk of space to try to explore some interests, to clarify what her degree path should be. And she's about to graduate from CCB in a STEM studies program and if UVM is a potential next step. We heard from you, Hannah, that you prefer the on ground classes, the in person classes at CCV as kind of a learning modality. I'm curious, Veden, for you, what do you prefer? So, in retrospect,

[Aidan Hall (Student, Proctor; Early College alum/Champlain College)]: I would rather prefer in person classes, Although, for the entirety of my CCD program series, I did mostly online classes. Both were great opportunities. I found, though, to me, the online opportunity was a bit more advantageous, because at that point, I was a good twenty minute away from the physical campus of the route and branch of CCV, so being able to just be at home, doing all of that and working all that there, without having to worry about the cost of, you know, gas or my vehicle breaking down constantly or something like that. It was definitely a nice weight off my shoulders.

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: Okay. I hear about that from other students too, right? So I think about how 80% of early college students at CCV take at least one course on ground, but synchronous online classes is a really big part of what accessibility looks like geographically. And also a part of what accessibility looks like for students who just prefer that modality. Think about Addison from Middlebury, and then was struggling in the traditional high school setting, self reported not having the best grades, being really worried about being able to get into college, his family was struggling with some health issues. He transferred to CCB and said the online class experience felt like a great preparation for college and for someone with anxiety was actually a great party match for him. He graduated with his degree, wants to be a mechanical engineer and first in his father's side of the family to in high school and was really powerful to

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: hear that experience. Any questions from your students? No. Thank you. And it was interesting. Your high school, you you probably couldn't supply enough courses in your area of interest. Yeah. And I think we're getting a school report card next week from the agency of education. But we know that's an issue if The ability of small high schools to provide the courses, especially if you're focused in one area and they just don't have the courses that you need, and then you end up being bored your senior year. That's not a good thing.

[Aidan Hall (Student, Proctor; Early College alum/Champlain College)]: Not even just for the classes I want to take. I know for Procter at least, I wasn't able to take our pre calculus class at Procter. We had to kind of take it over Zoom with our sister school in West Rowland. We had to take pre calculus with them because we didn't have enough resources to do that in Proctor. Thankfully, they'll be our, a part of the whole GRCC District, so we're able to share resources with other, parents, but yeah, it's one thing for us to not be, I'm not able to, you know, go further into cybersecurity than high school, but my issue was also kind of not being incredibly in excess. The, the stuff I need to graduate, like, freak out. See Maybe if

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: we need regional based schools.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Yeah, because I know my grad side has taken all the math courses, Spalding nonstop. Well,

[Hannah Dubrilovic (Student, CCV Early College - Montpelier)]: like, also, like, I know for Spalding, like, when I was looking at, okay, what can my senior year potentially look like? We don't have a lot of staffing for AP courses. That kind of just makes it feel Yeah, a little that's not a particularly small school. Yeah, I'd rather do college classes. Yeah.

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: When we kind of look statewide at where there are bright spots, I keep coming back to the scale of participation in this program among the young people who are telling us they either didn't have a plan Or they weren't sure if post secondary was for them or they weren't sure how they were going to go for them. And I look at what the simple message of a universal accelerated debt free associate degree at our state's community college and any of the 12 degree programs that are offered is going to change the story about what's available in the state. And I pulled that up against what it actually costs for our foundation to deliver this promise. Right? So it it builds on a lot of state programs that are already in play. And the last possibilities for us is well under a billion dollars a year to make community college degrees, you know, universally affordable and accessible, which feels like a really great return on investment relative to the story. This is good to hear. I also love the. We do a lot

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: of those scholarships, and the eight zero two promises the degree, right? Two years. So they are, they're

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: a little bit different. So eight zero two opportunity, right, is, makes CCD free for households making up to $100,000 a year, I think, without a bachelor's degree. And it is good for Vermont. That's good for Vermont. I think it's one of the best things to come out of this building in the past several years. And I think the three year support program, I think it's doing a lot to increase the accessibility of community college, which as our state access institution is a front door to other colleges, including our public colleges and universities. At the Montclair Foundation, we believe that for the very specific population of transition age youth, a means tested program may not be enough.

[Aidan Hall (Student, Proctor; Early College alum/Champlain College)]: Mhmm.

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: And so this what the Frigar's Frigar Prompts does is builds on eight zero two opportunity to make community college for this particular population at this particular time through this particular pathway available to everyone. To tell us about

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: the McClure Foundation because I know community colleges, I know what is the McLaurus Foundation background and

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: Yeah. So, we have been a supporting organization of the Vermont Community Foundation for over thirty years, And it was in 2001, after the board at the time of reviewing proposals from high visibility, larger nonprofit organizations in the greater Burlington area, that they recognized it through line. A lot of those organizations were saying, we're having a really hard time hiring nurses, we're having a really hard time hiring engineers. So it was actually a place based workforce development need that was our foundation's front door into career pathways and college and career readiness and public post secondary systems, right, and pathways as our foundation's focus. So I say we are both a workforce development funder and a post secondary access and success funder and a youth development and success funder. We partner with the Department of Labor to identify Vermont's high pay high paying jobs. That informs our grant making, but it's also a public resource. We produce these brochures of 13 different translations and have community mini grants going to public schools and libraries all over the state every two weeks. We have grants this month going out to Franklin County and Rockland County, really supporting anything that schools are doing to help young people graduate with the plan and support their career development progression. And then we have some focused strategies like public educator workforce development that are informed by that data.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Do you know anything about how or why the LaPorte Foundation began?

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: Yes, yes. So, the LaPorte Foundation was established at the Vermont Community Foundation by Matt and Lois. Their wealth was generated through multi generation ownership and sale of Burlington Free Press back in the seventies, something very long time, visible, philanthropic leaders in Vermont, and they institutionalized their philanthropy at Vermont Community Foundation as a supporting organization. Then our daughter, Barbara, serves as president of Brazil. And we have been focused on this issue since 2008. I've been with the foundation for fifteen years, and it's been a true joy, I think, to work at a foundation that really takes a long view in terms of place based commissions and has been consistent.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We've been doing a lot of talking about wealthy for Rogers in here, and it is good to hear that they do other things other than pay taxes. They benefit the state. Yeah. It is something and I know there was a Maccora wing at the hospital that that that is a name that shows up with their regularity when it comes to large scale what it would be, and now it's helping kids go to school.

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: She was an incredible woman in the great care from Vermont and Randy. Yeah.

[Aidan Hall (Student, Proctor; Early College alum/Champlain College)]: She has part of Barbara, building his own as well. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

[Unidentified committee member]: Excuse me, Greg. This is a a program we absolutely need, and I see the mission is to keep Kennedy in school. I'm overlaying is with the report card that we just got and graphs I've seen of our graduation rates of high school. And since 2017, we have gone from a very steady ninety percent we're at, and now we've dropped to eighty two percent, eighty one percent. Since pre pandemic, it's a lot of compounding factors. And so I see your program as an excellent on ramp to keep kids that are ready to keep getting school to get getting schooling, in the variety of programs. But I I might close it to the students and also to you from your vantage point. I'm worried about the kids taking the off ramp, and I'm wondering what is pressure not pressure, but what what's influencing them to decide that I don't need to finish out this high school degree. And the last piece I wanna say on that, if you overlaid our minimum wage increases over that same time period, you can see that we started increasing at a much faster rate since 2017. And I wonder, for your kids, if you guys know any friends that aren't completing their high school diploma, is it because they're socioeconomically lower income and that they are pursuing gainful employment in order to pay the bills, buy a car, buy an Xbox? And I'm wondering if you have suggestions now we get more kids to take your on ramp or at least not take the off ramp in completing their degrees. Thoughts?

[Hannah Dubrilovic (Student, CCV Early College - Montpelier)]: I would love to take this question off. So, I'm going to be honest, going from Spaulding to early college was a huge change, but it was the best change. And I think, yes, I think socioeconomic factors definitely tie in and I do think, you know, if you come from a lower income family, you might be more likely to not feel as motivated to get your high school degree, maybe. But I think a big part of it is actually how our school systems are running right now. I, when I go to CCV, my class, everyone is respectful. Everyone is there to learn. Everyone you know, because a lot of them are older adults who, decided to get a degree later in life, and they don't want to waste any of their money that they spent to be there. So they take seriously. And the teachers are there to provide, provide resources. Whereas when I went to Spaulding, it was distracting classroom setups. I know that there's been a big phone ban lately going on, but I don't think the phones are the only problem. I think it's truly, honestly, lack of discipline. Because when you go to school and you're there to learn and you care about what you're doing because you're paying to be there or if you don't do it, you just don't move forward. With the school systems, it feels like it's very of loosey goosey. It's very, know, do whatever you want. If you get in trouble at some point, it's like brushed off, whatever. You fail a class, okay, just retake it. I feel like there's no steady progress. There's no upward motion. It's kind of, unless you wanna take those steps, push yourself to go there or to do early college and push yourself to do that next step, I feel like that there's just a lack of motivation then. It's just like, oh, I just wanna get out of here or, you know, I'm so done with being here. And I also think that us having this more flexible schedule helps because it's, you know, I mean, I'm sure everyone in here is getting a little bit tired. You guys have been here all day. You're talking, you're doing a lot of important stuff. And, you know, it's hard being, you know, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. You know, you're getting up at 7AM, getting ready, and you're going home. You know, for some people, they're not going home till 6PM, you know, if they have after school activities, and that's tiring five days a week. And so I think having a more flexible schedule helps people stay more motivated. And I also just think the biggest problem, in my personal opinion, is just how the school system is perfectly set up right now. I think teachers are, you know, I know that the disciplinary issue, calls a lot of legal trouble, but I think we have too much systems of like, you do something so many times and then it becomes a problem when it should have been a problem in the first time and it should have been addressed then. That's just what I think. That's my opinion on it. Yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: Thank you. I've been wondering some of the same things, so it's And that's what really unconfirmed from the people that are actually I'm

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: really happy to lift up student voice today, and that's important to hear from the Milford Foundation's perspective. Right? I think high schools are doing an amazing job serving students at a very difficult time. And I think students are facing a

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: lot of It is difficult time across the board.

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: That's why I'm glad that some other committees are focusing on truancy and how to support truancy. I appreciate Senator Gulick's comment about scale. I think that it's absolutely tied up in this issue of how to support developmentally appropriate student choice about flexible pathways and how, what, they learn, be it work based learning or early college or CTE or something else. And we then also allows our systems to function well. Those are the systems complexities that are deserving of attention and focus right now and they're getting some attention and focus. From our perspective, it's important to make sure that student voice is also, you know, a part of the table, that we're able to lift up some of the bright spots.

[Hannah Dubrilovic (Student, CCV Early College - Montpelier)]: Don't hate falling in front of us. I promise. I think they work very hard. Yes.

[Unidentified committee member]: Hour of choice is huge.

[Aidan Hall (Student, Proctor; Early College alum/Champlain College)]: Yeah, think that's definitely a big thing that was influencing my decision. Like I said, I didn't have much opportunities for stuff, but another thing that led me towards the path of going to college was the flexibility that I gained in the process of that, instead of having to be at school by 07:00 until like 04:00, 05:00 or something like that. I had much more flexibility than my hours and availability than I was at the point that I was even able to support having a good part time job for a good, probably odd hours a week, and I still was able to graduate with, I think I was like a free book or GPM. Yeah. It allowed me so much more flexibility. It kind of drew away, like you were saying, like, the from the off ramp. I it allowed me thankfully, was never at that point where I haven't been debating the off ramp, but it's kind of given the opportunity to stay on that same course and not further go down it.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: It's still up the gates, like working and putting gas in your car to get up to class.

[Aidan Hall (Student, Proctor; Early College alum/Champlain College)]: Some of my coworkers from where I work, they were definitely on the lower income side, and I think I managed to convert one of them to early college. Yeah. And it's kind of, a lot of the basis was you have so much more flexibility. If you need more opportunities to have sustain your family, you get some opportunity while you're working with your college to fulfill your own needs as

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: as your families. You run into Carolina National, it's a problem where students will enroll in college and then find out you don't have the math and usually science or English skills and end up taking remedial work. Is is does community college kind of leave some of that out or nationally? Because then you get there, you take a year of remedial math, science, English. I can't write a coherent sentence, and you're chalking up debt and you can't use your scholarships, I understand, or at least the federal money to pay for the remedial work. Kids drop out and end up with debt and no degree. So I'm kind of hoping this might

[Carolyn Weir (Executive Director, J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation)]: I think these accelerated pathways are very much an opportunity for people to drive a college setting in a de risked way. Right? Yep. And I also recognize it has started snow at Procter in a middle grade. So, I don't wanna take too much of your time, but I'm really grateful to the students for sharing your statements. And I'll

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: see you soon. I went to community college because I didn't get statistics, and I needed it when my kids were in high school. I went back to graduate school, and I needed statistics. So I went out to junk, took statistics, And it was great.

[Hannah Dubrilovic (Student, CCV Early College - Montpelier)]: Well, thanks very much. Thank you all for listening to us, by the way.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: I'm being very merciful letting them out of this building before 04:00. I don't wanna. I appreciate it.

[Hannah Dubrilovic (Student, CCV Early College - Montpelier)]: Good luck with everyone driving home safe today.

[Aidan Hall (Student, Proctor; Early College alum/Champlain College)]: Thanks.

[Hannah Dubrilovic (Student, CCV Early College - Montpelier)]: And with that being you were just saying. But, frankly, be careful.

[Aidan Hall (Student, Proctor; Early College alum/Champlain College)]: Thankfully, I'm only commuting back up to Burlington because but, yeah.

[Sen. Ann Cummings (Chair)]: We go in the wrong way to the storm.