Community College Baccalaureate Association Awarded a Prestigious ECMC Foundation Grant to Promote Baccalaureate Pathways for a More Equitable Future for America prnewswire.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from prnewswire.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Advocates of community college baccalaureate programs have argued for years that low-income and nontraditional college students, such as older students, those who have children or those who are the first in their families to attend college, are more likely to get bachelor s degrees if they don’t need to switch to a more expensive four-year university to do so.
“They’re at the community college, they’re comfortable. They know where the library is, they know their student advisers, they know the financial aid people, they’re familiar with the faculty, the classes are smaller,” said Angela Kersenbrock, president of the Community College Baccalaureate Association. “Why force them to move to another institution?”
Set a few miles from the sea and surrounded by swampy state parks, Indian River Community College was for years a lone outpost of higher education on Floridaâs Treasure Coast. The nearest universityâFlorida Atlanticâwas nearly 60 miles away, a long haul down I-95 for someone seeking more schooling but bound to her community by a home, a job, a family.
âTo drive an hour-and-a-half one way to take a course at a university at night and backâit was just more than most families could handle,â says Edwin Massey, president emeritus of Indian River.
To help more Florida residents earn advanced credentials, the state expanded its university system in the early 1990s. The Treasure Coast region was in the running for a new institutionâbut the other side of the state won out.