The Voice - Student Newspaper

GCC plans to open innovative 'communiversity'

Higher education is at your fingertips. Surprise is hosting a new way to receive a higher education in the west valley.

The 'communiversity' is sweeping the nation with its beneficial opportunities. The communiversity is a cross between a community college and a university.

The benefits to attending a communiversity are accessibility, affordability, and a four year college degree without leaving your home town.

With respect to Surprise Communiversity, its development is a partnership between three Maricopa County Community Colleges and up to five universities, as mentioned by azcentral.com. Rio Salado, Glendale, and Phoenix community colleges will essentially pair up with four-year universities to bring education to the students of Surprise.

The development of Surprises Communiversity was a result of a desire for a college campus to be built in Surprise to support high school students from Wickenburg, Surprise, and El Mirage in pursuing higher education.

Though the land for where the school would stand was purchased the construction never took action, with the current fiscal travesty, the development of the college campus could be on hold for another ten years.

The Communiversity concept is based on a model in Brookdale, N.J. that took place seven years ago when Brookdale Community College and the State University of New Jersey, Rutgers melded a communiversity.

The communiversity offers fast and focused classes for the first two years of college education where a student can earn an associate's degree and a four year degree without worrying if the credits will be transferable because the community college portion works with the university portion to offer and alter a class syllabus to have credit that transfers.

This system could take you from high school education to a Master's degree without a lot of nontransferable credits and it will bring the cost of higher education down by about 33 percent, without ever leaving Surprise.

The Surprise Communiversity will open for the fall 2009 term at the Civic Center Plaza. Ideally some professors will teach in person and others will teach online. Mostly the education that is expected to be provided from the communiversity will be online but if a student chooses to they can take their courses fully on campus.

For more information about attending Surprise Communiversity, visit Surpriseaz.com or Rio Salado Community College.

Please send comments to mtabatabaishahab@gccvoice.com