The Technical College of the Lowcountry’s high placement rate puts the school among the top three institutions in South Carolina’s 16-school technical college system.
With 93.2 percent placed in a job related to their education or continuing with their studies, the two-year school surpasses the system average by 7 points.
Only Aiken Technical College, at 96.7 percent, and Northeastern Technical College, at 93.9 percent, exceed TCL.
For the Beaufort-based college, which has a Bluffton campus, among others, the placement rate is the result of being situated in a low-unemployment part of the state, operating a robust health sciences program in a region with an expanding medical landscape, and diligence on the part of faculty and advisory board members who work closely with area employers.
Richard Gough, who has been president of TCL for about one year, emphasized the area’s significant health care needs during testimony before state budget writers last week.
“The challenge is, on our side, that we don’t produce enough allied health students to support the local hospitals and all the needs that they have for our retiree populations, primarily in the Hilton Head area,” he said.
“The other challenge is, I believe we’re the oldest campus in the system. Our lineage goes back to 1867. Our buildings are not that old, but we do have a few that were built in 1930s and ’40s, and we have a great deal of upgrades that need to be done.”
Enrollment in South Carolina’s 16-school system is 62 percent female, while TCL’s is 69 percent female. The Lowcountry school, which had a headcount of 2,529 last fall, serves Beaufort, Jasper, Colleton and Hampton counties.
Nancy Weber, vice president for student affairs at TCL, emphasized the role of health sciences in the school’s high placement rate.
She said most graduates stay in the area, and health sciences students regularly accept jobs at Beaufort Memorial Hospital, Coastal Carolina Hospital and Hilton Head Hospital, and local clinic settings.
When Weber was hospitalized in 2011, she recalled that four of her nurses were from TCL. Her own daughter received her nursing instruction from TCL and has been working at Hilton Head Hospital for five years.
TCL does offer instruction in welding and related courses, but they’re smaller than programs offered at Greenville Technical College or more manufacturing-heavy institutions.
“Because our main areas are health science, tourism, those types of things, we don’t have a lot of manufacturing here,” said Weber.
“But in our health sciences programs, it’s nothing for them to graduate with a job.”
As for the high placement rate, Weber said it took a dip during the recession but bounced back. Historically, she said, the school has aimed to stay above the 80s.
About 15 percent of the student body at the University of South Carolina Beaufort has completed course work at TCL, according to USCB spokesperson Candace Brasseur. In some cases, students took a course at TCL while still in high school and then started USCB as a first-time freshman.
“This number certainly has the potential to grow as a result of the current and near future articulation agreements in progress in the academic disciplines of Early & Elementary Education, Nursing, Hospitality Management, and Health Promotion,” she said.
During his House testimony last week, Gough asked legislators for about $1.3 million for infrastructure upgrades at the New River campus in Bluffton.
“It’s a very dynamic, growing area,” said the TCL president.
BY THE NUMBERS
Placement rates for the 16 technical schools in the South Carolina system:
• Aiken Technical 96.7
• Central Carolina 92
• Denmark 68.8
• Florence Darlington 90.2
• Greenville 74.4
• Horry Georgetown 90.8
• Midlands 78.4
• Northeastern 93.9
• Orangeburg Calhoun 92.1
• Piedmont 88.6
• Spartanburg Community College 83.1
• Technical College of the Lowcountry 93.2
• Tri-County 79.7
• Trident 91.4
• Williamsburg 90.1
• York 92.5
Source: System budget request 2015-16