Did you know Pennsylvania\u2019s newest community college is situated right in Erie County?<\/p>\n
There\u2019s been rapid growth for the local school.<\/p>\n
Tonight, we check out the newest program and construction project on the main campus.<\/p>\n
It is this week\u2019s Giving You the Business report, sponsored by the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership.<\/p>\n
Dr. Chris Gray is the school\u2019s president.<\/p>\n
He was hired in 2021, about two months before the school opened, after a longtime local push to have one in Erie County.<\/p>\n
Since we visited what\u2019s referred to as EC3, at the original East 10th Street site of the former St. Benedict\u2019s, it\u2019s grown to four locations \u2014 including Corry, Summit, and now the main campus, which is the former Villa Maria School site off West 8th Street in Erie.<\/p>\n
The average age of students at EC3 is in their upper 20s.<\/p>\n
And tuition is taken care of with FAFSA scholarship application forms filled out.<\/p>\n
Lillyann Larson will now use her EC3 schooling as a springboard to higher education.<\/p>\n
The soon-to-be graduate has been one of the 800 students enrolled in one of the many programs offered.<\/p>\n
Registered nurse Bailey Shafer will oversee this and the new practical nursing program.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s the director of the health sciences, which also includes \u2014<\/p>\n
Described as the fastest-growing community college in the nation.<\/p>\n
More growth is planned to help any potential student reach their potential, with the hope of them staying in the community where they got their education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Did you know Pennsylvania\u2019s newest community college is situated right in Erie County? There\u2019s been rapid growth for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[30872,66753,136,142,138,137,4346,66754],"class_list":["post-146381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-community-college","tag-ec3","tag-erie","tag-erie-county","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-higher-education","tag-nursing-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}