Expanding education's reach

With the unemployment rate and college tuition costs both painfully high, the need to keep education affordable and accessible takes on ever-greater urgency. Trident Technical College and some local high schools are teaming up to do just that.

As recently reported in The Post and Courier, Trident Tech courses with college credits are being offered after regular hours at those high schools, which provide the classrooms. Students pay fees for their books and tuition for the college classes.

Trident Tech picks up the rest of the tab for various college courses at Wando High; cosmetology, early childhood education and general education classes at the Dorchester County Career & Technology Center; and culinary arts classes at Stratford High.

It's not just an innovative way to use those educational facilities after regular school hours. It's an innovative way to give local residents (and not just students at those high schools) who can't easily get to Trident Tech a chance they might not otherwise have to expand their educational horizons and advance their economic prospects.

Wando, for instance, is on the northern edge of Mount Pleasant, a 21-mile drive from Trident Tech's main campus in North Charleston.

As Wando principal Lucy Beckham told our reporter: "High schools today have to be different. It's about creating opportunities for this very large and diverse population to give them the access they need."

With the ongoing global competition for jobs hinging in large part on a well-educated workforce, expanding those opportunities should pay off in the long run.