College receives online education grant

College receives online education grant

Middlesex Community College (MCC) has recently announced that the U.S. Department of Education has awarded a three-year, $90,000 grant to the school to help develop the online education sector, according to the Lincoln Journal.

In partnership with the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium, MCC will begin to develop an online success center for adult learners which will address the challenges affecting the success of the non-traditional student.

MCC will work with three other colleges on the grant project – Middlesex Community College, Northwestern Community College and Passaic Community College, according to the news source.

The grant will allow students of the colleges to have access to faculty and counselors through web-based communication tools and will create a network of "success coaches" to help students work toward graduating. The grant project is financially supported by the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education.

The online education sector grew 13 percent last year and had been growing at about 20 percent in previous years. Nearly one in four students take at least some college courses online, up from one in 10 in 2002, Reuters reports.