FAIRMONT, W.Va. — Students of Monongalia County Technical Education Center (MTEC) will have the opportunity to be a part of a pilot program allowing students to enroll in Pierpont Community & Technical College while still attending their local high school.
Brian A. Floyd, provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Pierpont Community & Technical College, said the Pierpont Early College Academy replaces the “Earn a Degree Graduate Early” program, commonly referred to as EDGE.
“Students that would have been a part of the EDGE program before then came to Pierpont before would’ve completed their course, completed their program, graduated from a tech center, applied to Pierpont and enrolled, and then applied to have those credits transferred,” Floyd said.
The Pierpont Early College Academy streamlines that process to make it much simplier for students, Floyd said.
“Those 18 students that are enrolled, as they complete their course and programs, they will have college credit because we’ve already identified the equivilences, so that’s really exciting,” he said. “That means whether they go to Pierpont or not, they will leave the tech center with a college transcript, so that’s a huge win for those students.”
As the pilot program develops, not only with MTEC, but all tech centers in the region, Floyd said Pierpont hopes to develop other college credit courses.
Where EDGE students graduated with nine college credit hours, graduates of the Pierpont Early College Academy could potentially graduate with as many as 15, 21 or even 30 hours.
“As this framework begins to develop and as we get all the partners in line, that will be our intent to broaden those offerings at the tech center for those students, so that when they leave there, not only do they have college credit, but now we hope it’s something that they have at a much reduced cost to them,” Floyd said.
Making college more affordable for more people is a goal not only of the program, but of Pierpont Community & Technical Center as a whole.
“College affordability is a big part of what community colleges do anyway,” Floyd said. “With Benedum’s support, it’s helping us to underwrite a program to get a framework in place that we can burgeon that forward.”
Thanks to the Benedum grant, under the pilot model, the enrolled 18 students will not pay any cost of the college credits.
“This is a one-year grant, and we’re now in talks with Benedum on how we extend this out and bring it to scale for our whole service area of the 13 counties,” Floyd said. “Even with this initial support, we will already begin to work with the other counties.”
Floyd hopes to bring as many as technical centers aboard for the fall 2018 semester.
“It will take a little bit of time to get the courses and programming all in place, but that’s really the progression,” he said. “We’ll start with one or two to get the bugs worked out, so to speak, and then really scale it to the rest of the tech centers within our region.”
The Pierpont Early College Academy is unique to the technical and career centers, which account for roughly 70 percent of jobs in the U.S.
“When you really look at West Virginia employment needs and industry needs, it’s clear that technical skills are the things that are resonating well with current employers and industry,” Floyd said. “So the better we can equip students before they go into those jobs, the more successful those companies, the more successful those students and the more successful, ultimately, West Virginia will be.”