BC3 Lawrence Crossing Plans Virtual Open House

(New Castle, PA) BC3 @ Lawrence Crossing in May will hold a virtual open house intended to introduce prospective students to its 19 programs, its savings compared to Pennsylvania’s public four-year universities and BC3’s regionwide highest salary-to-cost ratio.

BC3, ranked as the No. 1 community college in Pennsylvania for 2020 by BestColleges.com, will hold BC3 @ Lawrence Crossing’s virtual open house at 2 p.m. May 14.

Prospective students can register for the event at bc3.edu/open-house. During the virtual open house, prospective students can ask BC3 representatives about financial aid, flexible course scheduling options, support services, student life, how 70 percent of BC3 graduates are debt-free and about BC3 @ Lawrence Crossing’s affordable transfer, career and certificate programs.

Prospective students can also apply free to BC3 from May 8 to May 17 at bc3.edu/apply.

Associate degrees available in 9 transfer and 8 career programs

BC3 @ Lawrence Crossing offers associate degrees in nine transfer programs and in eight career programs. Its menu also includes two certificate programs that take one year or less to complete.

Students in BC3’s transfer programs can apply credits to public, private and online four-year colleges and universities. Students in BC3’s career programs can develop the skills needed to enter the workforce immediately after graduation.

BC3 @ Lawrence Crossing’s selection of two-year transfer programs features business administration, criminology, early childhood education (Pre K-4), general studies, history, physical education-sports management option, psychology, secondary education and social work.

Students who complete a BC3 @ Lawrence Crossing degree in business administration, criminology, early childhood education (Pre K-4), history, psychology and social work can transfer with junior standing to any Pennsylvania public four-year institution, such as Clarion, Edinboro, Indiana and Slippery Rock universities of Pennsylvania.

BC3 @ Lawrence Crossing’s menu of two-year career programs includes accounting, business management, emergency services-police services option, human resource management, medical assistant, office administration-executive, office administration-medical and technical trades-cosmetology management option.

Certificate programs in medical assistant, and in medical coding and billing specialist, are also among the choices at BC3 @ Lawrence Crossing.

Students can also take pre-nursing courses at BC3 @ Lawrence Crossing and finish their degree at BC3’s main campus.

70 percent of BC3 graduates debt-free

Full-time BC3 students from Lawrence County can save $3,194 annually in tuition and fees compared to the average charged by Pennsylvania’s public four-year universities or nearly $29,000 each year compared to the average charged by private institutions.

Tuition and fees for BC3 students from Lawrence County pursuing 15 credits per semester for one year in 2019-2020 are $8,100.

Tuition and fees average $11,294 for students pursuing 15 credits per semester for one year in 2019-2020 at a Pennsylvania public four-year university; $13,945 at a state-related institution’s branch campus; $16,825 at a state-related institution’s main campus; and $36,801 at a private institution.

The average student-loan debt for the Class of 2018 was $35,510 in Pennsylvania, according to an Aug. 8 report in LendEDU, a website that provides comparisons for loans, credit cards and other financial products. Two-thirds of graduates from Pennsylvania institutions have student-loan debt, according to LendEDU.

Neshannock Township resident Chris Maize expects to earn an associate degree in business administration from BC3 @ Lawrence Crossing in May and be among the 70 percent of BC3 graduates who are debt-free.

“I don’t want to have to struggle paying student loans for the rest of my life,” said Maize, 20. “The fact that I am saving money is plain and simple. The way I look at it, I am getting the same degree as everyone else.”

The BC3 Education Foundation awards more than $200,000 in scholarships annually.

Salary-to-cost ratio topped 42 other institutions

According to the U.S. Department of Education’s 2018 College Scorecard, BC3’s salary-to-cost ratio, a measurement of graduates’ salaries 10 years after commencement for every dollar a student pays to attend the institution, was 7.45 and the highest among 43 regional colleges and universities.

BC3’s top 7.45 salary-to-cost ratio was most closely followed by West Virginia University at

4.79. The highest salary-to-cost ratio among five regional Pennsylvania public four-year universities was 2.61; and among the 21 private institutions, 2.81.

“I know people who are older than I am, in their 40s and 50s, and they told me they are still paying on student loans today,” Maize said. “I don’t want to have that when I am older.”

Prospective BC3 @ Lawrence Crossing students can email questions to admissions@bc3.edu.