Students in the Entrepreneurship and Business Academy at Kempsville High School will benefit from one of five Virginia Affordable Pathways Partnership Grants funded by the state’s Fund for Excellence and Innovation and administered by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV).
The competitive grants, announced by Governor Terry McAuliffe Dec. 7, aim to improve transitions from high school to postsecondary education, reduce costs to students, increase college-completion rates and lead to a degree, certificate or workforce credential.
According to a press release from McAuliffe’s office, the $140,000 grant awarded to Old Dominion University (ODU), Kempsville High School and Tidwater Community College (TCC) “will offer students a path from the high school’s Entrepreneurship and Business Academy, through enrollment in TCC’s business and entrepreneurship program, to ODU’s leadership major. It will use online and other resources rather than textbooks to reduce costs to students.”
The specific goals of the multi-institutional partnership, noted in the grant application submitted by ODU, include:
- Developing a specific pathway for a bachelor’s degree with a leadership major that could potentially reduce tuition costs for students by 57 percent.
- Developing a specific pathway for a bachelor’s degree with a leadership major that would allow the major to be completed without requiring students to purchase textbooks.
- Building on TCC’s nationally-recognized model, ODU will develop the infrastructure needed to expand the delivery of textbook-free courses through open educational resources (OER).
- ODU will develop at least 12 courses in its leadership major as z-courses (or textbook free).
The Entrepreneurship and Business Academy at Kempsville High School opened in September with its first class of ninth-graders and offers students three strands of study: Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Business Information Technology and Corporate Finance. In addition to dual enrollment credit opportunities, like the TCC courses available to academy students through the Affordable Pathways Partnership Grant, academy students will benefit from partnerships with the local, regional and national business community as well as from an internship experience their senior year of high school.
More information about the Entrepreneurship and Business Academy is available on vbschools.com. To learn more about the new Virginia Affordable Pathways Partnership Grants program or the additional 2016 recipients, view this news release.