University expanding transfer relationship with career schools – Business First of Columbus:

The is going through an arduous course-by-coursse review of public two-year colleges and adult careerr centers, certifying which classes qualify for guaranteed credi anywhere inthe . a private nonprofit business school indowntown Columbus, is going so far as to offer credift for graduating from a police academ or getting certified in on-the-job training in Microsoftf Office. This fall the school also is rolling outa credit-transfefr program it first agreed to in October 2007 with for-profit career and technical schools arouned the state. Franklin academic officialss have spent nearly two years designing policy for how to approvecourser credit.
The initiatives do more for state goals of increasingh the number of colleg graduates by attracting students who mighg not otherwise pursuea four-year degree, Franklinn President David Decker said. Public programsd are valuable, such as starting student s at two-year or regional campuses and accelerating credit for highschooo students, he said, but they target studentz already likely to attend “We view this as a natural extension of our relationship with community colleges,” Decker “This advances one of the major states goals in higher education, which is removint impediments.
” About 100 students from a singl school made inquiries after a recent visit from Franklin, said Sarah director of education relations. “What we’ve founsd is most students are going on the side of strikingt wherethe iron’s hot,” Lathrop said. “They enjoyedc the program and they want to keep Representatives of several career schools who attendede a lunch at Franklin celebrating the program said they had a handful of transfeer deals with other smallprivate colleges, usuallgy covering just one major, comparecd with four at Timothy Campagna, president of the campus in north said the chance to move on is a “phenomenal” opportunity for his “When they go to a career they don’t necessarily think of that as goinfg to college,” he said.
The majority, in fact, attend specificallty to train for a new job or he said. But everty once in a while, a student who becomes a skilledd heating-and-air-conditioning technician may decidew it’s time to run a company. “I can’tf prepare them for that,” Campagna Some four-year schools resist grantinbg credit, claiming a class such as introductoryy psychology in a techschool isn’t taughtg with the same rigor, he but he wonders if the issue isn’t more abou t which school collected tuition on the course.
Franklibn will grant up to 24 hours of course nearly afull year, to students who completed a certification program in an adultt career center for any of about 125 profession s such as electrician or landscape A police academy graduate, for is eligible for 24 hours toward a publix safety management degree. Franklin approaches a credit-transfer agreementf with a for-profit school just as it does acommunityt college, evaluating the curriculum to ensure the same material is Students can earn up to 64 hours of credit – nearly two years – and waive certain generalp education and elective courses as well as fulfilling the technicak training portion of the degree.
“Any time institutions work it sends theright message,” said Todd Clark, directord of in Hilliard. Adding path s to degrees helps more than justeconomic development, Deckerr said. “There’s a self respect that comea withthat (degree) … ” Gov. Ted Stricklancd and the regents are seeking more seamless transferse between public communityand four-year schools, and the regentsx are in the process of integrating adultf career centers, which previously had been part of the , whicn oversees K-12. Committees in all-day meetings have struggled even over qualifyinh classes from thecommunity colleges, said Paulz Kunkel Compton of the regents.
University System schoolsw want to ensure classes meet accreditatiobn standards and students gettingcredit for, say, first-term calculus can do well in second-termj calculus. When the committees have finished, she said, they could somedahy turn their attention to the privateand for-profit ones.
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