MGCCC offers affordable tuition and outstanding educational opportunities
Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College is currently registering students for summer and fall classes. Summer online classes begin June 27 and second term summer classes begin July 5. Fall classes begin August 22.
Gulf Coast offers a variety of academic classes, one- and two-year programs, and noncredit courses at nine locations in George, Harrison, Jackson and Stone counties. Online, hybrid, weekend and short-term classes offer students both flexibility and convenience.
“With academic transfer programs and more than 50 career and technical programs, Gulf Coast is meeting the educational demands of South Mississippi,” MGCCC president Dr. Mary S. Graham said. “In fact, MGCCC is the only institution in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana to be named in Community College Week magazine’s list of top 100 associate-degree producers in the nation and has been included on that list for 12 years.”
With affordable per-semester tuition rates of $1,400 for students taking 15-21 credit hours, MGCCC students save almost $5,500 as compared to students who attend university for their first two years.
“Our tuition rate is comparable to community colleges throughout the state, and is one-third of the cost of state public university tuition,” Graham said. “With a 92 percent job-placement rate in our career and technical programs within six months of completion and very high graduation rates, students have outstanding opportunities for success at MGCCC.”
An in-house study conducted at MGCCC shows that students can expect to recoup the cost of their accumulated tuition from MGCCC within 26 months after program completion. Additionally, MGCCC graduates can expect to make more than $34,472 annually, a $4,000 increase over high school graduates. More than 2,000 academic students transferred to institutions of higher learning within the past year, with a total of 94,675 credit hours transferred to 116 four-year colleges. Students transferring from MGCCC this past year saved a total of $10,997,625 in university tuition fees.
“Articulation agreements that MGCCC maintains with public and private universities ensure that our students receive the maximum number of transfer credits,” Graham said. “Additionally, research shows that students who begin their education at MGCCC and transfer to a four-year institution are just as successful as native university students. That speaks volumes for the quality of education our students can expect to receive at MGCCC.”
In 2011, the college was recognized as one of the Top 10 community colleges in the nation by the Aspen Institute Excellence Program and is currently in the top 150 competitors for the 2017 award. During the 2015-2016 school year, MGCCC was named a STEM Jobs Approved College, a Great College to Work For, a Military Friendly School and a Fit Friendly Workplace. Wallet Hub ranked MGCCC 82nd in the nation’s best community colleges out of more than 1,500 colleges.
At MGCCC, community, academic and government partnerships play a vital role in student success. The college has agreements to offer bachelor’s degrees on its campuses in Culinary Arts through Mississippi University for Women and in engineering with Mississippi State University. The college also has extensive agreements with The University of Southern Mississippi and the University of South Alabama to offer students easy transitions and optimal credit transfer, and graduates of MGCCC are ensured easy transfer to all of the state’s colleges and universities.
Agreements with the state and federal governments include job-training programs through the iWork program, SNAP Grant, Immersion Simulation: Interdisciplinary Training for the Gulf of Mexico Workforce (ISIM), and RESTORE Act funding. Partnerships with Ingalls Shipbuilding have expanded training at the Haley Reeves Barbour Maritime Training Center, where up to 30 hours of apprentice-training credit from Ingalls can transfer to an Associate of Maritime Technology degree from MGCCC. Gulf Coast is the first community college in the state to offer this type of competency-based education. Additionally, through a partnership with the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department, the college has a Law Enforcement Training Academy that offers accredited basic and advanced training to individuals from across the state and nation. In all, Gulf Coast partners with 59 companies to provide training to more than 15,000 workers annually. It is the state leader in workforce training and is responsible for 75 percent of all workforce development within its four-county district.
“Offering our students a world-class education is our goal at MGCCC,” Graham said. “We achieve that by working diligently to hire the best instructors, maintain state-of-the-art facilities and keeping tuition rates at an affordable rate for students. The fact that we continue to be ranked so highly at a national level is a testament to that commitment.”