LAWRENCE COUNTY Center: an advance in learning

In the past three years, the center's enrollment has tripled.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR NEW CASTLE BUREAU
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- When Angela Swabik decided she wanted to go to college, she thought she might be limited in her choices because she doesn't have a car.
But the 27-year-old New Castle woman found a host of choices just a few blocks from her home at the Lawrence County Learning Center.
She is starting her first semester with Butler County Community College this fall studying psychology. She hopes to become a social worker.
"It's close and convenient," she said of the learning center. "I don't drive. I can walk there if I need to."
Swabik isn't alone in looking for higher education opportunities closer to home.
Rise in enrollment
Arthur Zarone, director of the center, said enrollment in post-secondary classes offered through the center has tripled in the past three years.
During the 2000-01 school year, there were 842 students enrolled. In the 2002-03 school year, the number was up to 2,600.
The center is host to courses from Butler, Beaver and Allegheny county community colleges, as well as Web-based courses from the Northern Tier Educational Initiative -- a consortium of five state universities -- and classes offered by organizations such as Adult Literacy of Lawrence County.
Community college courses appear to be the most popular, Zarone said.
"The possibility of graduating from a four-year school gets much easier if you have funds to let you do it. By taking classes here, it enables people to save for the last two years," he said.
Up to 60 credits can be taken at the learning center through the community colleges for an associate's degree. The community colleges have agreements with four-year college and universities that allow those credits to be transferred and used toward a bachelor's degree.
Butler County Community College saw an opportunity to start satellite classes in Lawrence County 15 years ago by offering night classes at the Lawrence County Vocational/Technical School, said Diane DeCarbo, director of programs for Mercer and Lawrence counties for the college.
The center has given the college the opportunity to offer daytime classes, she said. Enrollment at Butler's classes in Lawrence County is up 26 percent this year, she said.
"Our classes [at the learning center] are popular," DeCarbo said. "More students are able to go to school full time."
Center's history
The center, one of 10 educational councils across Pennsylvania, started in the mid-1990s after a committee was formed to look for new educational opportunities in the county.
The center spent its first year in the Sankey Youth Center, a space owned and donated by the New Castle City Rescue Mission. Then it moved to 29 S. Mercer St., where there were six classrooms.
But as class sizes and offerings grew, the learning center looked for new space and eventually moved to its building at 131 N. Columbus Innerbelt.
Schools offering courses at the center aren't charged and students pay the same rates as students who live and take courses in the host counties, Zarone said.
Money from the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the city of New Castle pays for building upkeep and the salaries of Zarone and a few other employees.
State budget cuts are expected this year, but Zarone says the center will continue because he sees it as an opportunity for people who otherwise could not afford an education.
"It opens the door for our people to come here at minimal cost," Zarone said.