A Great Education Right Down the Street

WKCTC Graduate Dylan Howard Made the Decision to Attend College in His Hometown, And Now Promotes That Philosophy to His Middle School Students

NOT EVERY STUDENT IS READY TO leave home to attend college. That was certainly the case for Paducah resident Dylan Howard when he decided to attend West Kentucky Community and Technical College (WKCTC).

“It can be kind of lonely when you go to college and don’t know a lot of people,” Howard said. “So still being able to stay in the city and work part-time was most beneficial to me.”

Howard started at WKCTC and transferred to Murray State University after two years to complete his bachelor’s degree. Today, he is an 8th-grade social studies teacher at Paducah Middle School.

“Mainly I chose WKCTC because it was very close to home,” says Howard. “ A lot of my peers in high school wanted to go to a college in a different state or out of town, and I really didn’t think I was ready to make that step. Having a college that was very close to home and affordable was really something that I was looking forward to.”

WKCTC was especially affordable for Howard because of the Community Scholarship Program (CSP) which provides scholarship funding for up to 60 credit hours toward a technical certification and/or an associate degree at WKCTC. “I was able to maintain a certain GPA and my two years at WKCTC were essentially paid for,” Howard said.

The Rotary Club of Paducah initiated the idea for the CSP as a public-private partnership with strong participation from the Rotary, the city of Paducah, McCracken County Fiscal Court, partnering high schools, and WKCTC. Students from all participating Paducah and McCracken County high schools who enroll by October 1 of their high school freshman year and meet the high school performance guidelines are eligible to receive this gap funding scholarship, which pays the balance of tuition not paid by federal, state, and other scholarship grants for which a student is eligible.

“I’ve always lived in a single-parent household. Finances were always a struggle for my family, so going to college would be a challenge. I knew the coursework was going to be harder, and I knew I was going to have to pay bills at home,” Howard said, adding that time management was a bit of a juggling act at first, but a skill he learned to his benefit.

In addition to his academic subjects, Howard said he also learned to build relationships and how to empower others while at WKCTC. “I like to talk to my students about the opportunities that WKCTC provides because they are getting to that next step where they are heading into high school, and it’s time to start making decisions about where they are going to go to college,” Howard said. “I always start by telling them that college is right down the street. You don’t have to go hundreds of miles away. You can get your education right here at home.”

by Amanda Hutchison