COEUR d'ALENE - Give me five. Five North Idaho College students, that is.

NIC is implementing a retention program this summer called Give Me Five in which college employees mentor five new students to help them transition and stay in school.

The program is among the initiatives NIC is launching to meet an ambitious Idaho State Board of Education plan called Complete College Idaho, which calls for 60 percent of Idahoans ages 25 to 34 to have a post-secondary degree or certificate by 2020.

Only 42 percent of Idahoans in that age group have a degree or certificate, increased from 35 percent when the plan was implemented three years ago.

NIC President Joe Dunlap updated the SBOE on Thursday on ways the college is working on the Complete College Idaho challenge.

"We're very proud of the initiatives that we've put in place, the programs we've started and the progress we're making toward better access, retention and graduation rates for the state of Idaho," Dunlap said.

Under Give Me Five, NIC employees will contact students at least once a month to see how they are doing and to help break down any barriers the students are facing.

"If they need help, they can have somebody to go to," said Graydon Stanley, NIC's vice president of student services. "Our employees are excited about this. We have custodians and security officers who have never been invited to work with students and now they have five of their own. Some employees have even become competitive about it, saying that they believe all of their students will graduate.

"It's changing the culture on campus. We've always intended to do well, but we're a little more intentional about it now."

Stanley estimates that at its start, the new program is engaging 150 employees and 750 students.

Dunlap told the board that NIC has received several grants recently - including ones that open doors to careers in health care and the wood products industry - that are helping draw students to the college. Partnerships with other colleges throughout the state on programs and high schools with dual-credit classes also continue to expand at NIC, he said.

An aggressive building schedule is another example of how NIC is working toward improving retention and increasing opportunities and graduation rates.

"Over the next two and a half years we will have three new buildings coming online," Dunlap said.

The college broke ground on Wednesday on its $20 million, 110-square-foot Career and Technical Education Facility in Rathdrum. The site will house eight programs and allow those programs to expand.

NIC will also break ground next spring on a $7.7 million student recreation center on its Coeur d'Alene campus that will be funded with student fees.

A third building to be constructed will be an $8 million joint-use facility in collaboration with Lewis-Clark State College and the University of Idaho to create more classroom and office space.

"The state's Permanent Building Fund gave us $4 million as seed money for that project and each of the institutions will put out the additional funding," Dunlap said. "Construction will start on that next fall at the earliest as we have to go through the design process."

After some large fluctuations in enrollment numbers both during and after the recession, NIC officials have reason to believe the numbers are stabilizing.

NIC's enrollment increased 41 percent from 2008 to 2012 during the recession. In 2012, the number was at an all-time high with nearly 7,000 total students and 5,500 full-time students.

Then, from 2012 to this year, the enrollment numbers dropped about 10 percent per year. This spring's numbers were 6,072 total students and 4,224 full-time students.

Stanley said summer school enrollment is up 1 percent after it had declined the two previous summers.