Governor's Drive to 55

Governor Haslam has challenged our state with a critical new mission: the Drive to 55 – the Drive to get 55 percent of Tennesseans equipped with a college degree or certificate by the year 2025.

It’s not just a mission for higher education, but a mission for Tennessee’s future workforce and economic development.

The Alliance

Tennessee’s new Drive to 55 Alliance is an active and rapidly growing alliance of private sector partners, leaders and non-profits working together in support of the state’s Drive to 55 initiative to equip 55 percent of Tennesseans with a college degree or certificate by 2025.

The goal of the Drive to 55 Alliance is to help generate greater private sector awareness, ownership and support for the long-term steps needed in college entry and completion, adult education and training, and identifying and closing skills gaps to better prepare our workforce and our state for the future.

While the Alliance will actively support all facets of the Drive to 55 initiative, it will focus initially on the successful launch and implementation of the new Tennessee Promise scholarship program that provides two-years of tuition-free community or technical college to Tennessee high school graduates beginning with the Class of 2015.

In 2015 and beyond, the Alliance will continue to tout Tennessee Promise, but will also help lead the charge for Tennessee Reconnect to help recruit and attract more adults back into our higher education system, and Tennessee LEAP, to better align student skills with workforce needs.