What an opportunity our FCS Freshman have next year! If you haven’t heard, we are partnering with Grace College to offer an Associate of Science (A.S.) in Liberal Arts to our FCS students. They’ll take their Math and Science classes with our FCS teachers and they’ll take their English and History classes online with Grace. Students will also take a wide variety of general education courses – the kinds of classes that serve to establish a well-rounded foundation.
I am really excited to be involved in this program, as I think it’s a great opportunity for our students. My role will be to work with our Faith students after they enroll in the program to help navigate being both a college student and a high school student. I’ll help them keep on track and work with them on time management, as well as be their advocate in the process. I have a daughter in the 9th grade, and so not only have I been involved in the administration of the program, I’m involved as a parent in making the decision about enrolling Josie. Do we have some concerns about her ability to handle college material as a 15-year-old? Sure! Are we wondering if she has teh discipline and determination to follow through and be successful? Of course! But we also recognize that this could be absolutely transformational in her life.
These are a few of the benefits we see in being a part of the Grace A.S. program:
1. As parents, we believe that our daughter will grow in time management. While we’re scheduling in a study hall for the Grace/FCS students, they will have a full load and will have to balance their time. If this can be learned now, how greatly this will benefit her in the long run! We believe that her written communication skills are going to be greatly benefitted. She’ll do more reading and writing then she would have to do in a traditional high school class since discussions will be online in nature.
2. The credits offered through Grace are so affordable! Even if Josie chooses to attend a school that won’t take all of the credits, it’s still going to save us a significant amount of money in the long run. While the final cost isn’t set, we don’t expect it to be more than $8,000.00 including books. 60 credit hours for $8,000.00. That’s crazy! Many of these academics credits will transfer to other colleges and universities.
3. Josie thinks she might want to attend the University of Southern Indiana (USI) one day. At this point, USI estimates that they’ll take about 45 of those 60 credits from Grace.
This goes hand in hand with the financial benefits of being in the Grace A.S. program: the current per credit cost at USI is about $245. That’s $11,000 plus books, and we all know tuition is likely to go up at most schools. Grace College will accept all 60 credits toward an advanced degree and is working with other institutions to determine what courses will transfer into their programs. At this point, we’ve saved $3000 plus books, Josie will be more ready for the academic demands of college, she’ll have better reading and writing skills, she’ll have grown in her time management abilities – this is a win, win, win, win for both her and us!
