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Cossatot Community College |
CCCUA Receives Accreditation for Online Associate of Arts Degree
Release Date: 27 FEB 2004
DE QUEEN – Frank Adams, Chancellor of Cossatot Community College of the University of Arkansas, announced today that the College has been notified by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA) that its Associate of Arts degree has been accredited for 100% online delivery. The 60 credit-hour online degree was approved by the Arkansas Department of Higher Education last fall.
“We are very excited about what this NCA accreditation means for higher education in our service area in particular, and for Arkansas in general,” said Adams. “Now, with an accredited, fully-transferable Associate of Arts degree being offered completely online, more and more students will have an incentive to discover for themselves the personal attention and high-quality instruction they can get from our web-based classes.”
Adams continued, “Accreditation is particularly important for the Associate of Arts degree, because that is the foundation on which people from our area can build their Bachelors, Masters, and even Doctorate degrees. This is one more way we are demonstrating to the communities we serve that Cossatot is committed to holding its leadership position among Arkansas two-year colleges.”
Distance Education Chair Steve Cole added, “Students from all over the world will now be able to get their Associate of Arts degree from home if they want to. We are finding that the more international attention we create for ourselves through advertising and other recruitment techniques, the more people in foreign countries are convinced that they shouldn’t just get a degree from an accredited, U.S.-based institution, they should get a degree from CCCUA, which allows them to save a great deal of money.” CCCUA’s internet tuition for students in the College’s four-county service area is $40-$45 per credit hour, and $80 per credit hour for students residing outside the service area.
CCCUA was the first college in Arkansas to offer an online Associate of General Studies degree complete at one institution, and is currently developing an online-only version of its Associate of Science degree, which was accredited last year as part of NCA’s accreditation recertification process. CCCUA also offers an Associate of Arts in Teaching, and Associate of Applied Science, Technical Certificates and Certificates of Proficiency in more than three dozen fields. It is accredited by NCA through 2013.
Cossatot Community College offers both technical certification and Associate’s degrees in a wide range of fields on its campus at De Queen, at extension sites at Nashville and Ashdown, and at cccua.edu. It has an enrollment of more than 1,100 students, and is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.
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