It is designed to improve transfer student access and success through a collaborative degree completion program.

Students will apply to HCC and ECU simultaneously and commit to maintaining full-time status. Upon completing an associate degree, they will seamlessly transition into degree-completion programs at ECU.

Ron Mitchelson, provost at ECU, said completing the first two years of a four-year degree at a community college can save a student $43,000, according to a national report from the Educational Advisory Board.

Other benefits to students include access to ECU libraries and programming through the ECU Office of Student Activities and other organizations, ECU One Card eligibility, joint financial aid counseling and micro-scholarship opportunities, joint academic advising, and a waiver of the ECU transfer application fee.

"This is an exciting opportunity for our students,” said Michael Elam, president of HCC. “The co-admission program provides HCC students with an expanded college/university experience simultaneously, in partnership with ECU.”

During a signing ceremony and reception earlier this month, ECU Chancellor Cecil Staton thanked the presidents and representatives of the community colleges for their role in furthering the education of North Carolina students.

The co-admission program, he said, will be a boon to both ECU and the community colleges in producing the teachers, nurses, engineers, business leaders and health professionals that the region needs to meet its future workforce demands.

"This is an exceptional initiative for our current and future HCC students,” said Barbara Bradley-Hasty, vice president of Enrollment Management and Student Success at HCC. “This provides yet another pathway to success, providing them with clear goals at the very beginning of their collegiate career. In addition, the dual enrollment offers benefits that go beyond the walls of the classroom and create a more holistic college experience. This is a great step for the Roanoke Valley and HCC."

The new co-admission program, expected to begin this fall, provides more access to academic programs and support services than the more narrowly focused articulation agreements that exist between individual community colleges and ECU for specific degree programs.