CHICAGO — Cheers echoed through the ballroom of the Palmer House hotel Wednesday as the crowd celebrated a familiar champion.

Once again, Tennessee took center stage.

Hundreds of higher education leaders had gathered at the Chicago hotel for the annual Complete College America conference highlighting the nation's most effective programming.

Gov. Bill Haslam and the state won an award for pushing programs like Tennessee Promise, a first-of-its-kind statewide full-tuition scholarship program for nearly every new high school graduate heading into community and technical colleges.

It was a scene that has become increasingly familiar.

Tennessee Promise previously drew praise from the Obama White House and states across the country. Tennessee Reconnect, a similar statewide tuition scholarship program for adults to go to college, was met with an unexpected surge of interest.

Those sweeping programs, along with fine-grain redesigns of remedial education and college funding models, have made the Volunteer State a national exemplar.

"Tennessee's been at the game of reform for a long time," said Bruce Vandal, senior vice president at Complete College America. "What we're seeing is innovative ideas take root there and actually get implemented."

But, as more states have followed suit, creating their own statewide scholarships and reshaping remedial courses to keep vulnerable students from dropping out, Tennessee's pioneering programs have become mainstream.

And there is certainly more work to do.

A recent analysis by the USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee, in partnership with the Education Writers Association, found that while college attainment has grown during Haslam's tenure, Tennesseans in rural or low-income communities are still much less likely to have a college education. Students of color are much less likely to succeed than their white peers.

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Haslam's departure signals a transition for Tennessee college programming

As Haslam leaves office, and hands the baton to Gov.-elect Bill Lee, a new dynamic is taking hold.

"Tennessee's been a leader, but the rest of the country is beginning to catch up," Vandal said. "Tennessee, if they want to maintain that position, is going to have to be aggressive."

So higher education officials are beginning to wrestle with a new question.

What's next?

“We’ve done Promise, we’ve done Reconnect," said Emily House, the chief policy and strategy officer at the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. “Now we really have to drill down."

House said Tennessee's next phase of college programming would be made with an eye on smaller subgroups that lag behind.

Students in poor pockets of the state face different challenges compared with affluent, white Williamson County students, for instance. No statewide program could ever address both.

“You don’t just have one initiative," House said of the state's new strategy. "You could have 95 initiatives.

“It’s a lot more of a challenge than a blanket, universal” program.

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Higher ed handoff to Bill Lee will be significant

Vandal, the Complete College America senior vice president, said the presence of a strong, supportive governor in Haslam had been instrumental in Tennessee's continued growth.

Haslam, a Republican, inherited a college landscape in flux from former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen, with a series of new reforms just taking root.

"It could have very easily been nipped in the bud as soon as a governor from a different party came in," Vandal said.

Haslam did not back away from the Bredesen-era changes.

"He actually doubled down," Vandal said. "If anything we saw the state move forward more aggressively with more innovative approaches."

Another gubernatorial shift will take place on Jan. 19, when Lee takes over from Haslam.

Lee has repeatedly voiced support for Drive to 55, Haslam's suite of programs aiming to put 55 percent of Tennesseans through college by 2025.

"The governor-elect believes Drive to 55 has helped Tennessee put a much-needed focus on workforce development," Lee spokeswoman Laine Arnold said in a statement.

While promoting Drive to 55, Haslam repeatedly stressed that students of all interests and ambitions could find a path through higher education — through a four-year university, a community college or a technical college.

Lee has suggested his approach will be different, saying in one campaign commercial that “for way too long we’ve told people, ‘You’ve got to go to college.’ ”

Arnold said the Lee administration would build on Drive to 55 "by emphasizing additional pathways to success, including career and technical education and improving access to work-based learning."

"With major companies like Google and IBM no longer requiring college degrees for jobs like coding, we need to ensure our goals are nimble enough to meet the demands of a quickly changing job market."

Vandal predicted that the transition from Haslam to Lee would be significant as the state moves forward from Tennessee Promise.

"The real challenge is to be able to stay the course and not recede," he said. "These things have their cycles."

Reach Adam Tamburin at atamburin@tennessean.com or 615-726-5986 and on Twitter @tamburintweets.

The USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee, with support from the Education Writers Association Reporting Fellowship program, spent months examining Tennessee’s closely watched efforts to expand college access and improve graduation rates, especially for black, Latino and poor students.Read more at education.tennessean.com.

Educating Tennessee

Join The Tennessean in a conversation with Gov. Bill Haslam about higher education, its importance and what's left to be done.

When: 6 p.m. CST Monday, Dec. 10

Where: Nashville Public Library, 615 Church St.

RSVP: Go to Haslameducation.tennessean.com