UNK, CCC announce business pathway designed to make transferring seamless

GRAND ISLAND, NE — Two central Nebraska institutions are working together to make the path to a bachelor’s degree more seamless.

Central Community College and the University of Nebraska-Kearney announced a new business pathway program on Monday. CCC President Dr. Matt Gotschall says the program guarantees participating students’ credits will transfer, ensuring their time and money isn’t lost. 

“Now that this agreement’s in place, we’ll have even more students be able to move right into the bachelor’s without having to go back and worry about repeating a class that they maybe have already had with us,” Gotschall said.

The pathway allows business administration or academic transfer students to take 60 credit hours at CCC, then transfer to UNK to complete the remaining 60 credit hours necessary for a bachelor’s degree.

UNK Chancellor Doug Kristensen says the pathway was born by thinking from the student’s perspective.

“(We began) to build programming and a process that is very easy to navigate," Kristensen said. "You start here and it transitions over to UNK and things are really, as we’ve said so many times, they’re seamless.”

Gotschall says UNK is a logical partner for pathway programs because 42 percent of CCC academic transfers become Lopers.

“So it just makes sense that we continue to build additional pathways in order to get them (to UNK) and keep them in central Nebraska,” Gotschall said.

Kristensen says he thinks this just the start of more pathway programs for UNK.