Community college offering free tuition for residents

POLKTON — Since 2016, Anson residents have had the unique opportunity to use government funds to enroll in free classes at South Piedmont Community College.

The community college offers associate’s degree programs or, for those looking for accelerated options, residents can participate in “career in a year” programs.

“Career in a year” focuses on giving students fast and flexible options to enter the workforce. In as little as 60 days, students can come through the program and receive a certificate, diploma or skill set, which can lead to a job. For example, students can enroll in driving classes and within the year, if not less, students will receive their license to become a truck driver.

Programs vary from agriculture, business, construction, education and nursing.

“Anson Advantage refers to the scholarship that allows students to come and take these classes for free,” said Misty McMillan, director of Marketing and Public Relations for SPCC. “The program itself we call it ‘Career in a year’ and it’s basically short-term programs that are career focused. Many of them, if not all of them, offer flexible schedules, evening classes and it’s typically careers we know that people are going to be able to find a job.”

The scholarship covers tuition and fees for all Anson County residents in either credit or non credit classes. There is no age requirement for the scholarship or classes. All you need is a high school diploma, to live in the county and register for at least a 96-hour class to be covered by Anson Advantage.

“It leads to employment in areas that are needed in the community,” Dean of School of Applied Science and Technology Dr. Maria Lander said. “They could take the class in either one of the campuses in Anson or Union County.”

After completing a “career in a year” program, students can decide later if they would like to come back to obtain an associate’s degree. The certificate or credit from their first program will go towards the associate’s degree.

Back in 2015, the state started to redistribute sales tax to counties with smaller populations. Anson County then gave a share of this to South Piedmont, part of the state sales tax overhaul of 2015, which allowed the college to offer Anson Advantage, according to Lander.

“Right now it is unique to Anson,” Lander said. “It was mainly the way that Anson County also decided to use those funds to give it to us and that’s how we decided to disperse those funds.”

Lander credits the school and residents’ value of education for the creation of Anson Advantage, plus SPCC wanted to provide residents with the opportunity to find jobs.

“We also noticed a lot of students didn’t come to college because they had financial barriers,” Lander said. “Although there is financial assistance like federal aid for the curriculum classes, for the non-credit classes this is the only opportunity that they have to get a program paid for.”

About 740 students have used Anson Advantage since the program’s inception. Students are instructed to apply for financial aid and, whatever is not covered from that, Anson Advantage will come in to pay for the rest.

“Our enrollment numbers, especially in Anson County, has been very high,” Lander said. “We have been able to train people like truck driving. There is a big need in the community and this really allowed us to meet the needs of the community and also for Anson residents to get good jobs.”