The University of Akron and Stark State College have announced a partnership to allow students to proceed from a 2-year program to a 4-year degree with much greater ease.
The new Direct Connect program allows students to enroll at both schools simultaneously, and will also make it simpler for Stark State students to get academic advising from the University of Akron. Akron’s Interim President John Green acknowledges that more students may be able to save money by taking basic classes at Stark State instead of enrolling in a 2-year program at the university.
“There may be some short-term decline in certain programs. But I think overall, we’ll see an increase in the 4-year degrees that are offered in that college. So in that long-term I think it will, at least, be a wash.”
Green says some of the affected 2-year programs at the University of Akron could be in criminal justice and engineering, while others – such as Allied Health Technology -- were already expected to have declines and are slated to be phased out.
