One Step Away Grant Program

Grants of up to $60,000 to Maryland colleges and universities to increase graduation rates. Funding is intended to support programs that target students who have dropped out or fallen short of their academic credit requirements. Grants are available to allow institutions to identify, contact, re-enroll, and graduate "near-completer students." These are students who have earned 75% or more credits toward an associate or bachelor’s degree; or may have enough credits for an associate or bachelor’s degree, but have stopped-out or dropped-out for 12 consecutive months or longer without obtaining a degree.

Institutions are encouraged to specifically target near-completers who may be able to complete within the institution’s reported six-year graduation rate (i.e. initial enrollment in 2014-2015 academic year). Institutions may also include near-completers from earlier initial enrollment years, as long as the “six-year graduation cohort” is not excluded from the outreach and recruitment efforts. 

Near-completer students may be identified as degree-eligible or degree-potential, defined as follows:

• Degree-eligible: Students who have accumulated the required number of credits, completed required courses, and hold a grade point average (GPA) above the minimum required for a degree, but have not received an associate or bachelor’s degree. These students may not realize that they have met the degree qualification threshold within their program of study; may qualify for a degree that is different than the one they were initially seeking; or they may not have met residency requirements or non-academic testing requirements associated with degree completion. This category also includes students who have earned but not received a degree award due to financial holds or incomplete paperwork.
• Degree-potential: Students that have earned at least 75% of the credits needed for an associate or bachelor’s degree and/or still need to fulfill specific course or competency requirements. These students may be “nearly eligible” for the degree they were originally seeking, or another academically similar degree.

Proposals must address the overarching grant program goals by including three or more of the following objectives:

• Objective 1: Develop new and/or improve existing outreach strategies to inform and encourage near-completers to re-enroll in college.
• Objective 2: Enhance student support systems to include academic, financial, and/or social advising that facilitate smooth re-entry into the educational environment and retention through degree completion.
• Objective 3: Increase re-enrollment rates of near-completers by offering a track/plan of study which will increase the speed of completion.
• Objective 4: Establish and implement prior learning assessments or competency based testing to award college credit for returning adult learners.
• Objective 5: Develop a general studies or other type of associate or bachelor’s degree program for which students who have accumulated a high number of credits (45 or 75 credits for an associate’s or a bachelor’s degree respectively), but not necessarily the correct credits for the originally intended degree program may qualify.
• Objective 6: Increase re-enrollment rates of near-completers by offering new campus- based sustainable financial aid options using campus or other financial aid resources for support such as textbook waivers and/or tuition discounts.

For details about fundable activities, see: https://mhec.maryland.gov/institutions_training/Documents/grants/OSA-FY2021-RFP.pdf#page=8