Greensboro is now home to a new college campus. A ribbon cutting ceremony was held last week to celebrate the grand opening of Virginia College.
Virginia College opened in October at the former Kmart store on S. Holden Road in Greensboro. The school invested more than $6-million in the project.
The college offers associate degrees for programs in medical assisting, network engineering and cosmetology.
More than 250 students currently are enrolled at the Greensboro campus. Misha Swint, president of the school's Greensboro campus, says the college also offers a variety of fast track career training programs.
“We have been contacted by businesses in the Triad area and one of the needs that we see in certain fields, what we are offering is healthcare, which is medical assisting, medical billing and coding and pharmacy technicians,” says Swint.
Swint added, “We are also seeing a growing need for culinary arts and a need for cosmetology. Network engineering is another area we keep hearing about, but the workforce is not there.”
Swint says bachelor's degrees are offered in some fields on-line through the school's Birmingham, Ala. campus. The cost for tuition is around $12,000 to $13,000 a year, depending on the program.
Virginia College is a private, for-profit college with 26 campuses in 11 states, mostly in the Southeast. It is owned by Education Corporation of America. Swint says this is the college's first North Carolina location.
“We are bringing something a little bit different. I am not a GTCC, I'm not an A&T. My student base and population are those who are looking to get in and get out into the workforce. One of the things that we are striving to do is to place people immediately into their jobs, that's one of the measurements for Virginia College. We have to place a certain number of people in jobs once they finish our program,” says Swint.
Swint says the college has roughly 60 employees, with plans to reach 100 full-time positions by the end of the year.