CLC students have chance at guaranteed admission to Arizona State
College of Lake County officials say they have landed one of the top universities in the country for a program that guarantees admission to students who want to complete a four-year bachelor's degree.
Arizona State University will automatically accept qualified CLC students at any of six campuses under the transfer partnership with the Grayslake-based community college. CLC students also have the option of completing a four-year degree through Arizona State's online programs.
CLC President Jerry Weber said the transfer partnership with one of the country's top universities is a coup for his two-year school. U.S. News & World Report ranked Tempe-based Arizona State No. 1 on its "Most Innovative Schools" list in the United States for 2016.
Arizona State is the latest school to sign a guaranteed admission partnership with CLC as part of a program that Weber said makes CLC more attractive and gives students additional options. Other agreements CLC has forged in recent months include American Business School in Paris, DePaul University, Eastern Illinois University, Northern Illinois University and Elmhurst College.
"In this kind of arrangement, really, the winner is the student, because now, I as a student, get two years at affordable cost, right?" Weber said Thursday. "I could finish CLC, hopefully, debt free. And now I have these other options."
Weber said what makes the latest deal different from CLC's other guaranteed admission agreements is CLC students can get into any of Arizona State's bachelor's degree programs. Arizona State offers at least 300 academic undergraduate programs and majors.
Weber said CLC worked about eight months on the Arizona State agreement.
The new guaranteed admission agreements with other public and private four-year colleges and universities are in selected programs, he said. For example, Weber said, the deal with University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign is limited to engineering students.
Karen Hlavin, CLC's associate vice president of student development, said students can have seamless transfer to "high-quality four-year colleges and universities."
"CLC is constantly working to increase the number of colleges participating in guaranteed admissions programs to create even more opportunities for our students," Hlavin said.
Weber said partnerships such as the ones CLC has with Arizona State and the other schools should continue to grow.
"I think this will open up more," he said. "I think other community colleges will follow suit and other universities. I think it'll be interesting to see how this plays out and what our student interests are."