Article Body
News Release
Contacts: Jack R. Warner, Executive Director and CEO
Janelle Toman, Director of Communications
Telephone: (605) 773-3455
Fax: (605) 773-5320
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, March 29, 2012
Lower-Cost Courses to be Offered at University Center-Sioux Falls
ABERDEEN, S.D. – A lower-cost option for delivering the first two years of a baccalaureate education will be offered soon at University Center-Sioux Falls. The UC-SF Foundations program aims to bring new students into South Dakota’s public university system and graduate more of them to meet workforce demands.
The South Dakota Board of Regents this week approved a pilot program, which will be available to students this fall.
“The Board of Regents welcomes this innovative opportunity to reach out to new consumers of public higher education,” said Regents President Kathryn Johnson. “All of us in higher education are being called upon to produce more graduates, people who are highly skilled and educated, for the workforce,” Johnson said.
“We also know that the cost of education can be a barrier for some, so to offer a new level of access for Sioux Falls-area students is very positive,” she said. “If successful, we expect lessons learned from this pilot could be replicated elsewhere within our system.”
A specific group of 100- and 200-level courses will be identified for delivery at University Center-Sioux Falls as part of the Foundations program. This set of courses will then be priced at a rate below the current self-support tuition rate paid by students at off-campus centers. Courses will be charged at $189 per credit hour, about $100 less than the regular undergraduate self-support tuition rate.
“The intent is to identify a limited set of general education courses that we can deliver in a very cost-effective way,” said Jack Warner, the regents’ executive director and CEO. “By marketing this program to attract more students into these sections, we can achieve greater efficiencies in course delivery, allowing us to reduce the price,” he said.
These courses will comprise a student’s first 60 hours of postsecondary study. It is anticipated that many students will then move on to complete further requirements for the 120 credit-hour bachelor’s degree.
Examples of proposed UC-SF Foundations courses include College Algebra, Fundamentals of Speech, Biology Survey, Composition, American Government, Principles of Accounting, and Business Writing.
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