This is an inspirational story worth sharing.

From the Hechinger Report.

From pews to classes, a new push for higher ed in church

Damita Rhodie was on her way to a bachelor’s degree when she fell in love, got married, had kids, divorced, and ended up with no bachelor’s degree and no time to get one.

It’s a story so common that policymakers struggle mightily to overcome it in their efforts to increase the proportion of Americans with degrees. Yet enrollment has been going down, not up.

Rhodie bucked that trend. A rare exception, she has now returned to college for a degree in social work. And her motivation came from a source as persuasive as it was unexpected: the pastor at her church.

“I don’t claim to know all the rules and regulations about re-entry into college, but where I can be helpful and functional on the team is to have access to the people who trust me enough to say, ‘Pastor Cleveland, I really want to come back and do this,’” said the pastor, Odell Cleveland, of the 4,000-member Mount Zion Baptist Church here.

The idea of using churches to help drive adults back into college started with Degrees Matter!, a nonprofit in Greensboro. If politicians, business leaders and schools couldn’t do it, the organization reasoned, maybe churches could.

“What we’re trying to do is move the needle to get as many people into education programs as possible,” said the organization’s associate director, Camy Sorge. “It’s really about, ‘How can we reach the most people?’”

Mount Zion is the only church that so far has teamed up with Degrees Matter! but Sorge said she hopes to enlist more.