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From High School to Nursing: Career and College Promise Saves Times and Money for Students
Southeastern Community College’s Career and College Promise program propelled seven high school students through their prerequisite classes to join the ADN class of 2025. Isabella Coleman, Julia Deavers, April Huggins, Kyleigh Reaves, Emma Simmons, Elizabeth Strickland and Charles Stewart graduated high school in 2023.
SCC President Dr. Chris English emphasized the financial benefit to parents of CCP students who are getting college and high school credits at the same time.
“It’s cost savings for a family since the tuition is free,” English said. “It’s a benefit for students, it’s a benefit for parents and it’s a benefit for our community because it creates a workforce pipeline from high school to college to the workforce.”
SCC Executive Vice President Dr. Sylvia Cox explained that one of the initiatives the state government created for the CCP program was to address the growing need for workers in the healthcare field.
“These students can get those classes while they’re in high school and have the support of their high school counselors, their family members and the college staff,” Cox said. “So that’s a really strong winning team.”
Cox said that exposure to these classes at a younger age helps students figure out what career path is right for them. She said the support system combined with automatically landing in their field is “phenomenal” because it is filling the workforce need in nursing.
SCC Student Advisor Natalie Freeman recommended that high school students start their CCP classes during their junior year to start on the eight needed prerequisite courses. Before taking on their nursing courses, all seven students completed one ethics, one ACA, two English, two psychology and two biology courses as high school students.
“It’s basically two more years after high school and then they can become a nurse when they are 20 years old,” Freeman said. ‘It’s just a quicker process for them, and they can get a jumpstart on their career at a younger age.”
Career and College Promise courses start Aug. 29. Prospective students are encouraged to talk to their high school counselor or Freeman at [email protected].
