Big Dreams

Saving Time And Money On The Road To Advanced Degrees

Do you have plans for a career as a valued professional in a high-demand field? If so, you know that several years of higher education lie ahead of you. Careers in healthcare, education, business, engineering and others require a minimum of four years of higher education.

Choosing one of these career paths means two things: many years to study AND many years to pay tuition. Fortunately, Southeastern Community College can help you with both!

At SCC, we offer general education classes which are part of the core curriculum for a bachelor’s degree at the university level. Taking your first 60 credit hours (or two years) of classes at Southeastern allows you to ease into the rigor of college-level academics while staying close to home and saving money. Financial assistance is available in the form of grants and scholarships, including the SCC Success Scholarship which covers the full cost of tuition and fees for two years! That means that eligible high school graduates who live in Columbus County can attend college tuition-free! You’ll also earn an Associate degree in Arts or Science that will help you to gain employment while you work on your higher education at the university level.

While you’re at Southeastern, our caring and knowledgeable academic advisors will help you tailor a plan that works for your chosen profession and and will help you identify universities that suit your academic and career goals.

According to Elizabeth High, Dean of Student Learning and Innovation, “Our new cohort model of advising will pair a student with an advisor whose academic and professional experience aligns with the student’s aspirations. The advisors will be able to draw on their own college and career journeys to assist our students along the path that will ultimately lead to their chosen profession.”

In addition to career-oriented advising, students can also join the newly-formed University Transfer Club. Club advisor Donte McDowell says, “With this club, we hope to establish a sense of community for our students who plan to complete a four-year degree at the university level. Member students will gain valuable information and insights about the process of transferring to a university, and they will have the opportunity to meet with key personnel from North Carolina universities.”

Students who start their educational journey at SCC don’t need to worry about how well they’ll perform at the university level. Studying under the guidance of SCC’s highly qualified and caring general education instructors prepares students for bachelor’s level coursework. The latest data available from the University of North Carolina System’s interactive data dashboards shows that students who complete 60 hours of coursework at SCC before transferring to a UNC institution have a higher first-year GPA than students who started out at one of the 16 universities in the UNC system!

Do you have plans for a career as a valued professional in a high-demand field? If so, you know that several years of higher education lie ahead of you. Careers in healthcare, education, business, engineering and others require a minimum of four years of higher education.

Additionally, students won’t have to repeat courses once they transition to the university level. Course credits earned at Southeastern transfer to any of the 16 North Carolina public universities and most North Carolina private universities as well. Existing pathways and articulation agreements between the University of North Carolina University system and the NC Community College system ensure that courses completed at SCC are equivalent to university courses. That means our transfer students don’t have to take classes again and waste precious time and money.

“Our advisors use Bachelor Degree Plans established by each university to ensure that students are taking the classes they need to graduate from SCC and to continue in their chosen field of study after they transfer to the university,” said Dean High. “Students can earn 60 credit hours and an associate degree at SCC, transfer to a university to complete their bachelor’s degree, and continue into the appropriate professional school— medicine, law, pharmacy, for example - or begin Master’s and Doctoral work, if required. Making SCC part of the plan is a smart decision all the way around.”

For more information on University Transfer programs at SCC, please contact Elizabeth High at elizabeth.high@ sccnc.edu or 910-788-6367.