Transfer Program Expands, Adds Sixth Community College

Posted on June 8, 2011

Leaders from UNC and Central Carolina Community College have announced a new partnership to improve opportunities for students to transfer to and graduate from Carolina.

The new partnership is an expansion of the Carolina Student Transfer Excellence Program, or C-STEP, a program that has helped nearly 250 students enroll at Carolina since its launch in 2006. C-STEP identifies talented low- to moderate-income students while they are in high school or early in their community-college careers; guarantees their eventual admission to Carolina if they earn an appropriate associate degree and complete the program; and offers special events and advising, both at their home college and at Carolina, while they are pursuing their associate degrees.

Central Carolina has campuses in Chatham, Harnett and Lee counties. It is the sixth partner school to join the program, which includes Alamance and Carteret community colleges and Durham, Fayetteville and Wake technical community colleges.

“We’re grateful for this opportunity to expand C-STEP to another part of North Carolina,” said UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp ’86. “This partnership will help students find their way to Carolina and graduate on time. We look forward to welcoming these students to Chapel Hill and helping them achieve their dreams.”

Central Carolina and UNC will immediately begin working to identify a cohort of eight to 15 students to enter the program as soon as this August.

“On behalf of our students, faculty and administration, we are excited to become part of the C-STEP family,” said Dr. T. Eston Marchant, president of Central Carolina Community College. “Our students are more than ready to make full use of this opportunity.”

C-STEP was founded at UNC in 2006 with a grant from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. To date, 86 percent of all C-STEP students have earned their bachelor degrees within five semesters of their enrollment at UNC — a rate that equals that of first-year students at the University. A grant from the Triad Foundation First Generation Fund is supporting this latest expansion.

---

More online…

• Worth the Wait: Not every Carolina student got the “you’re in” as a high school senior. Many transfers didn’t even seek it.  A new collaboration with community colleges aims to find more of those who want, or need, more time. From the Carolina Alumni Review, March/April 2007, available online to Carolina Alumni members.

---