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Hood River News Editorial
September 20, 2006
High school students riding school buses along 12th Street today can
look out the window at the place where, in less than two years, they
might start their college education.
That place will be the Hood River campus of Columbia Gorge Community
College, scheduled to open for classes in Fall 2008.
The imminent creation of a full-fledged CGCC campus in Hood River
County is great news for this community. The existing college center
on Industrial Way has given people here a real taste of what it means
to have a place of higher learning close at hand, but the Heights
campus will greatly expand on that. The center, and its class
offerings that dovetail with the main The Dalles campus, gives local
students a leg up.
But the Hood River campus will place students’ feet firmly on the path
toward a two-year or four-year degree. Hood River residents, teens on
up, will be able to attain their entire associate degrees in a
conveniently located campus.
This is a good thing to keep in mind in the face of some discouraging
news about the declining numbers of young adults attaining college
degrees, as reported in the Sept. 7 Oregonian newspaper.
According to Shelby Oppel Wood’s report, in Oregon the chance that a
student would enroll in college by age 19 declined from 40 percent a
decade ago to 33 percent this year, according to a report by the
National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
Here in Hood River, that trend can go the other direction. Students
will be well-served by a campus that is no more than a 30-minute drive
from any point in the county. CGCC offers an affordable way to attain
one of a wide variety of associate degrees, with ample opportunity for
associate credit transfers toward four-year diplomas.
The Hood River center permitting process is nearly complete, and the
CGCC facilities staff is now working with architects on final designs
for the campus, with its main entrance at 12th and Pacific.
All this points out that the window to education won’t have to end
with the view out of a school bus.
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