The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
JVS, LCCC announce new joint program
The Lorain County Joint Vocational School and Lorain County Community College have announced a new partnership allowing JVS high school students to earn college credit.
JVS Superintendent Glenn Faircloth, talking Oct. 17 at the JVS Machine Tech Lab in Oberlin, said the initiative called the Career and College Advantage Program gives JVS students an opportunity to earn a year’s worth of college credit, or about 30 credit hours, while still at the vocational school.
“We have a very exciting program… that will help students in a big way,” Faircloth said.
“The savings for students is valued at over $5,000. They will save up to 50 percent the cost of an associate degree.”
Faircloth said the program has students enrolled at both the JVS and LCCC.
“The credits are transcripted immediately through both institutions,” he said. “This provides students with more opportunities as they prepare for post high school education.”
Lorain County Community College President Marcia Ballinger said the program highlights a great partnership between the two institutions.
“This partnerships is groundbreaking,” she said.
“Now students can attend the JVS, enroll in a career program, intern with a local business and earn college credit all the same time. This is the first collaboration of it’s kind between a joint vocational school and a community college in the state.”
Ballinger said the process to create the program was not a long one.
“The working relationship between these two institutions goes back decades,” she said. “We started talks early in the summer, and it only took several months to develop. We had two institutions that came together to figure out what was best for Lorain County. This program makes things better for the students, parents, educators, workers and employers in the county.”
Ballinger said the college
wanted to extend the reach of its College Credit Plus program.
“The program has come a long way in the past decade,” she said. “We had 24 percent of students graduating Lorain County high schools with some amount of college credit in 2008. This year, we had 43 percent. Students in this county have more opportunities available to them than ever before. I’m thrilled to be expanding our programs for the JVS students, who are now our students.”
According to a news release by the JVS, the partnership launches with four JVS programs. They are Computerized Design and Drafting, Culinary Arts, Network Communication Technology and Project Lead the Way — Engineering.