SNHU to Become a Community College

Julie Armstrong Business Manager

SNHU President Paul LeBlanc has announced his plans to convert SNHU into a community college.

LeBlanc’s announcement came on March 10, in light of the Biden Administration’s push for free community college.

“We have to get this done. And we have to do it now. That’s why we’re going to make sure that everyone has access to free community college and training programs,” stated First Lady Jill Biden in a YouTube video posted in February.

With this in mind, LeBlanc has announced SNHU will cut tuition rates, stating that he trusts in Biden’s stimulus bill, acknowledging that the bill has two years to play out.

Innovation Scholars, a subset of the three-year program for Business Administration and Hospitality,

will be qualified for reduced tuition, along with any undergraduate student who has achieved over half of their required credits. To continue a degree program at SNHU, the remaining student population is required to abide by the previous tuition rates that were reduced by 50 percent.

“No student is paying more out of pocket than they were before,” says LeBlanc.

LeBlanc expressed his desire for the entire student body to receive a good education without the hassle of paying loans. With this recent decision, undergraduate and graduates will have the option to stay online, since SNHU’s campus will only be open for classes. Students under the mandate to pay reduced tuition rates will have the named and endowed and merit scholarships at their disposals.

With no 100 percent assurance that the vaccine will work, LeBlanc has stated, students “will be able to be back on campus with some relative version of normalcy.” This normalcy has been translated into meaning that students can not live on campus and will only be allowed inside the Dining Center and classrooms dedicated to hands-on training. Students majoring in the following degrees will be required to stay on campus: Aeronautics & Aviation, Engineering, Technology, and Art & Design.

Students who do not live in New Hampshire are recommended to remain online if they can not afford to live in a rented space outside of SNHU.

Southern New Hampshire Community College.

(image courtesy: Kyle Griffin)