Southeastern Community College’s Career and College Promise (CCP) program is launching college education for high school students at a faster pace and putting them on the road to successful pathways. Recently, seven high school students completed their prerequisite classes through the program to join the associate degree Nursing class of 2025.
Isabella Coleman, Julia Deavers, April Huggins, Kyleigh Reaves, Emma Simmons, Elizabeth Strickland and Charles Stewart graduated high school in 2023.
Through the CCP program, the college offers dual enrollment opportunities to qualifying high school juniors and seniors. High school students have the chance to pursue a high school diploma while concurrently progressing towards earning a post-secondary academic credential including a certificate, diploma, or degree. CCP is also tuition free.
SCC president Dr. Chris English explained the financial benefit of CCP for students and their parents.
“It’s cost savings for a family since the tuition is free,” English said. “It’s a benefit for students, it’s a benefit for parents and it’s a benefit for our community because it creates a workforce pipeline from high school to college to the workforce.”
Executive vice president Dr. Sylvia Cox said that one of the initiatives the state government created for the CCP program was to address the growing need for healthcare employees in the workforce.
“These students can get those classes while they’re in high school and have the support of their high school counselors, their family members and the college staff,” Cox said. “So that’s a really strong winning team.”
She further explained that having kids enrolled in college classes at a younger age helps them figure out what field of study they would like to pursue as adults. She said the support system combined with automatically landing in their field is “phenomenal” because it is filling the workforce need in nursing.
SCC student advisor Natalie Freeman suggested that high school students start their CCP classes during their junior year to complete their prerequisite courses. Before enrolling in the ADN program, all seven students completed one ethics, one ACA, two English, two psychology and two biology courses as high school students at the Columbus Career and College Academy on the SCC campus.
“It’s basically two more years after high school and then they can become a nurse when they are 20 years old,” Freeman said. ‘It’s just a quicker process for them, and they can get a jumpstart on their career at a younger age.”
Career and College Promise courses start on Aug. 29. Prospective students are encouraged to talk to their high school counselor or Freeman at [email protected].
