Onondaga Community College helps high school students both save tuition costs and get a head start on their academic life by offering their courses to them while they’re still in high school.
Selling your Central New York home? Get a free home value report
Buying a Central New York home? Search all homes for sale
Welcome to part II of my interview with Casey Crabill, the President of Onondaga Community College. Today we’re continuing our discussion about the on-campus experience of OCC and the unique way in which they help high school juniors and seniors transition into a higher learning institution.
OCC has a ‘College Credit Now’ agreement with most of the surrounding high schools in the district, which includes OCC courses that are offered in a variety of ways to high school students during the day. These courses are based on the same academic outline at OCC, meaning the same tests, the same texts, and the same assignments. Students have the choice of taking these classes on campus at OCC or at their own high school.
Students who are interested tend to work with their guidance counselors and then spend part of their day at OCC for a specific purpose or to get a head start. According to Casey, they often see a lot of high schools students in the summer who are trying to explore a new field. OCC’s courses at the high schools are offered at no charge to the students during their school year.
OCC has the ability to tailor the experience to each individual student.
From a financial point of view, students can enroll at OCC for $4,200 a year. This means that for less than $10,000, they can get two years of education and matriculate into another school and save two years of tuition costs. Casey has noticed more and more families taking advantage of this opportunity in a combination of ways. Research shows that high school students who enroll in OCC and then transfer to another institution are just as prepared and do just as well as students who started at those other institutions.
For any student concerned that this option might cause them to miss out on the college freshman experience, Casey assures them that this isn’t the case. OCC has learning communities in their residence halls and first-year programs for students.
“We really work hard to make sure that students who have an idea that they want a certain kind of college experience can have that here,” Casey says.
To supplement that fact, she notes that nearly 40% of the students in their residence halls live within 25 miles of campus. This means that they could be commuters, but they choose to have the full OCC experience.
I want to give a very special thanks to Casey for joining us for this interview. If you have any questions for her, you can reach her by phone at (315) 498-2214.
If you have any other questions for me, please feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you!
