White Mountains Community College News
Community College System Program Gives NH Students a Running Start on a College Education
With a college education more important than ever, wouldn't it be great if there were a way for high school students to get a jump start on higher education? The Community College System of New Hampshire has a program enabling students to do just that.
Project Running Start is an enrollment partnership between participating high schools and the community colleges that allows high school students to take college courses at a reduced price. By taking the college courses, students enrolled in Project Running Start earn credit toward high school graduation, while also earning college credit.
The courses, which only cost $100, are taught at high schools during the regular school day by high school faculty who meet the community college system's credentialing standards. These high school instructors partner with a college faculty member in delivering the course. In addition to the "Running Start" on college credits and the reduced tuition, the program allows students who are undecided about post-secondary education to try a college-level course.
With courses taken through Running Start, students can transfer the credit to other institutions, whether another community college or a four-year institution.
Sarah McGillicuddy, a senior at Gorham High School, has earned a total of 19 college credits by taking Running Start programs. All told, tuition cost her $500.
As a student in the program, Sarah's college-credit, dual-enrollment courses included Anatomy and Physiology 1, biology, calculus, and others. Because she was able to earn so many credits, Sarah will begin her college career next year as a sophomore, where she'll study bio-chemistry to prepare for a career in Research and Development.
"I definitely liked the experience of what a college classroom might feel like - the teachers tried to make it feel more like college," Sarah said. "It was neat, it was definitely worth it."
After a decade, Project Running Start has proved very successful at giving students like Sarah a flavor for college and an opportunity to get ahead in their college careers before they ever set foot in an actual college classroom.
At NHTI in Concord last year, nearly 650 students enrolled in Project Running Start courses that ranged from Accounting to Western Civilization to Sports Marketing, said program coordinator Mary Snyder.
Since assuming the duties of the Project Running Start Coordinator at White Mountains Community College in Berlin nearly three years ago, Bob Corrigan has seen enrollment in the program grow from about 70 to more than 420 students. Statewide, he said, close to 5,000 New Hampshire students are enrolled in Project Running Start.
"I view Project Running Start as a means of economic development for the North Country," Corrigan said.
With the reduced tuition, not only does the student save money, it's also an investment in the local economy rather than being spent in another area or state, he pointed out. "And while the tuition money stays home...that student may also decide to stay home and take his or her first year or two of schooling in the North Country at the community college."
So even if the student eventually transfers all of his or her college credits to a four-year school in Boston, for example, that student will spend less money and time in Boston and will have spent some tuition money in the North Country that never would have been spent here were it not for Project Running Start, Corrigan said.
"But, of course, the most important economic development aspect of Project Running Start is that we have begun to nurture a labor force ofour own nurses, our own teachers, our own technicians while the students are still in high school," Corrigan said. "Project Running Start runs on the fuel of partnerships between highly qualified local high school teachers, their administrators and school boards,our partnering college faculty members, and supportive parents who want their children to take the measure and challenge of a college course."
Now, perhaps more than ever before, it is crucial that our students are fully prepared and educated for the workforce; for many, that means at least some element of a college education.
For students and their families who worry about affording a college education or how they might fare in a collegiate atmosphere, Project Running Start gives them a much-needed boost.
As Bob Corrigan noted, this is good not only for thousands of students, but for the rest of New Hampshire as well.
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