SIU and Shawnee Community College have a new agreement to help students earn their Associates degree.
SIU Chancellor Austin Lane and SCC President Tim Taylor held a signing ceremony Thursday morning to establish a reverse transfer agreement.
Under this agreement SCC students can earn their Associates degree while attending SIU.
To be eligible student must complete at least 15 transferable credit hours and one semester at SCC before transferring to SIU.
Chancellor Lane says this program will lower student debt by ensuring students don’t take classes that they’ve already had, but didn’t transfer to SIU.
“Students sometimes will take a lot of hours, hours that sometimes don’t always count to a degree when they get here, so this project really is going to stop that because students accumulate large amounts of debt when they do that and they get a little upset when they finally get here and realize that oh wow I took all those classes and none of them transferred here or will go towards my degree.“
President Taylor says transferring the credits back and earning an associates degree will also put students on a path to start their career.
“Having that associates degree gives them a little more opportunity to be employable, it gives them a little more opportunity to save money on their debt and so it’s really a powerful tool for our schools.”
Students must maintain a GPA of 2.0 or higher.
