College Courses to be Offered Locally

Upper Allegheny Campus of ‘BC3’ ready to begin enrolling students

The Endeavor News

Butler County Community College (commonly referred to as BC3) this month begins offering local residents an opportunity to get a college education close to home.

Jill Martin Rend, director of the BC3’s Upper Allegheny Campus, gave details of the college’s offerings during Thursday’s meeting of Potter County’s Board of Commissioners.

Satellite campuses are located at the Potter County Education Council’s office at the vocational-technical school in Port Allegany, and at the Community Education Council of Elk & Cameron Counties in St. Marys.

Rend said the bulk of BC3’s course offerings will be available online only, but some can only be taken “face to face” based on the nature of the instruction.

“Our focus is online because it’s the most convenient way to access (our courses) in rural areas,” she said.

She added that the goal of the program is to branch out into underserved communities. She noted that the college will bring the “face to face” courses to other towns where as few as three or four students are enrolled at BC3.

Initially, only two degrees are being offered through the Upper Allegheny Campus— business management and general studies. All of the credits are transferable, she said, noting that students can enroll at BC3s main campus, other branches or any other state university.

The Port Allegany and St. Marys offices are set up to handle enrolling, placement testing, scheduling, etc.

Rend also noted that the university offers “dual enrollment” programs in which students can begin taking college courses through BC3 while they are still in high school.

Cost for courses while students are still in high school is $342.

Cost for students who are not still in high school are $188 per credit for courses that are given face to face and $203 per credit for those taken online.

Spring semester offerings include: business math, human resource management, intro to business, intro to microcomputing, developmental English, developmental reading, English 1, health science, preparatory mathematics, preparatory algebra and general psychology.

Registrations are being taken now.

For more information on BC3 and its local course, call 1-888-826-2829 or visit www.bc3@edu.

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