First Lady Jill Biden visited Guilford Technical Community College’s Greensboro campus on Monday afternoon to hear from and highlight stories of area students exploring careers through community college courses while still enrolled in high school and to bring attention to local, state and federal efforts making that possible.
Biden, who is a community college professor herself, pointed to a new “Classroom to Career” proposal that President Joe Biden made last month. According to the Education Department, the president’s budget proposal for next the next fiscal year includes $7 billion to reduce student education costs, “by providing funds to states to expand student access to free, career-connected dual enrollment programs.”
Dual enrollment means students taking college courses while still in high school.
“For most people, a high school diploma alone isn’t enough to find a great career,” Biden said in a brief speech at Guilford Technical Community College. “But that doesn’t mean there is only one pathway to success.”
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Biden took part in a panel discussion in front of students, media and other invited guests in the GTCC-Greensboro campus center. In her introductory speech, she started out by commenting teasingly that as a college professor, she’s aware that students may be especially eager to attend an event if it’s an excused absence from class.
NC Gov. Roy Cooper, GTCC President Anthony Clarke, Guilford County Schools Superintendent Whitney Oakley and Suzanne Rohrbaugh, vice president for instructional services at at Randolph Community College, all spoke at the event, along with area students.
Oakley said dual enrollment is growing rapidly in Guilford County, but there are some challenges for school districts, including textbook costs not covered by colleges and and transportation hurdles in a time of bus-driver shortages. Currently, Oakley said, the district is using limited time funds from the federal American Rescue Plan to help mitigate those challenges.
“Prioritize the funding for the access to those programs that are allowing our North Carolina kids to access the thousands of jobs that are coming here,” she said.
Area students who spoke during the panel discussion shared experiences exploring careers in everything from health fields to manufacturing.
Giovanni Robinson, a fourth-year student at The Middle College at GTCC-Greensboro, spoke about his desire to study architecture and business, to help figure out how to provide durable housing for homeless people who can’t otherwise afford what’s in the market.
Another student speaker was Teniola “Teni” Oladunjoye, who studied at The Middle College at GTCC’s Jamestown campus as a high school student, and is now continuing her studies at the community college. For next year, she’s been accepted into UNC Chapel Hill.
Oladunjoye said studying at GTCC-Jamestown gave her the kind of challenge she was seeking and wasn’t getting in traditional high school. At first, she said, she thought she wanted to study biology, but actually getting a chance to explore that path made her realize that’s not her preference going forward. So then, she said, she got to explore some other career options through courses at the college, like business and public healthy.
Her goal, she said, is to study health policy management. She wants to help decrease the prices people have to pay for pharmaceuticals, such as inhalers.
“Anyone who has medical issues should be able to afford any type of medications they need,” she said.