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CCAC wants to broaden its access across region

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With 55,000 full-time and part-time students, Community College of Allegheny County is the region’s biggest institution of higher learning, hands down.

That enrollment size isn’t stopping CCAC from broadening its access further, particularly in trying to reach more people looking to take courses or earn an associate degree to advance in the region’s workforce, its president said Friday.

Dr. Quintin Bullock told members of Washington County Chamber of Commerce during a breakfast meeting at Golf Club of Washington in Chartiers Township that CCAC is pressing ahead to create programs in areas it identified as the area’s fastest-growing careers.

Those include health care, cyber security, energy and natural gas and computer-aided design technology.

Other short-term programs that are helping to fill continuing demand in the region are preparation for a commercial drivers license for truck drivers and welding.

“We want to further position the college to receive more students,” Bullock said, noting the college, with four campuses and four learning centers and a full-time faculty of 250 instructors, has an annual operating budget of $104 million.

He said the college also stepped up visits to area high schools to promote the idea of students considering pursuing good-paying careers that require something less than a four-year college degree.

That prospect is vital to local communities, he added, noting 94 percent of CCAC’s graduates stay in the region.

“Many families think a four-year degree is the decided degree” to pursue, Bullock said, adding many students are surprised to learn they can be trained for a career in something like heating ventilation and air conditioning service in half of the time and earn a good living without the financial burden of four years of college.

The other selling point CCAC takes to secondary schools is students can earn an associate degree in two years, and start a career with an employer who may help to subsidize a four-year degree, helping them to offset much of the cost.

Economic and workforce studies showed there are several thousand unfilled jobs in various fields across the region, many of which require an associate degree or a course of short-term training for eligibility.

That’s an educational need CCAC fills, Bullock said, working with employers and workforce development organizations to develop customized training and specific courses.

In fact, the ability to respond quickly to changing workforce needs is a major part of CCAC’s calling card.

“We’re very flexible, nimble and can turn on a dime and respond to what the needs are,” Bullock said.

CCAC has had a campus inside Washington Crown Center in North Franklin Township for more than a decade. Bullock said the college currently has 1,338 Washington County residents enrolled in its programs.

The ease of local residents taking classes here could be expanding.

Bullock said the school is exploring the possibility of expanding its Washington County presence to the former Donora Elementary Center, which he and other CCAC officials toured in mid-June.

“We stand firm and open to expanding our role in Washington County,” he said.

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