With the GEM program Airmen will be able to take their five (5) CCAF required General Education courses through Coastline in as few as three back-to-back eight (8) week sessions. "We've really partnered with our faculty to create course sets, or Learning Communities, which can be taken simultaneously for a combined learning experience with common assignments that satisfy both course requirements,"
Through this Learning Community approach, Airmen will have the opportunity to concurrently enroll in both English C100 - Freshman Composition and Sociology C100 - Introduction to Sociology, satisfying both the Written Communication and the Social Science general education requirements for the CCAF Degree. Each course has its own instructor and each course has a 3.0 semester hour value. The two instructors have collaborated to allow students to achieve cross discipline educational value by completing single assignments or exams that meet the requirements of both classes.
The greatest advantages of the Coastline GEM program to Airmen, however, are the $50 textbook program and the 1 Carat Incentive program. Through these aspects of the program textbooks for the GEM program are priced at $50 or lower. "The cost of textbooks continues to increase year after year and we, at Coastline, are committed to lowering the cost of these textbooks for students. If there are two (2) textbooks for a course totaling over $200 normally, Airmen will only have to pay $50 per course for all textbook materials ," added Dean McKenney. Based on the success of the $50 textbook policy, Coastline plans to roll the policy out to all its military programs with the Fall session, excluding its Military Spouse program where the textbooks will remain free to spouses of active duty military personnel.
The $50 textbook policy is coupled with the GEM 1 Carat Incentive program which can return that $50 back to the Airmen after successfully completing their CCAF required General Education courses through Coastline. For example, If an Airmen has five (5) courses identified on their GEM plan as needed to complete the general education component of their CCAF Degree, a 1 Carat Incentive of $250 may be achieved if the Airmen completes all five (5) courses successfully at Coastline Community College no later than five sessions after beginning their GEM plan at Coastline.
Coastline, a Fountain Valley, California community college, is already a major provider of courses to the military. With over 30,000 military student enrollments this past year, Coastline awarded 49% of all Associate Degrees earned by Navy Sailors worldwide. A regionally accredited college, Coastline is a member of Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges, works with every branch of service to provide distance learning courses to stateside and deployed military personnel and has been consistently selected and recognized as a top "military friendly" college.
"It's our hope that the Coastline General Education Mobile program will really set a high water mark in voluntary education opportunities for the military." added Dean McKenney. "We feel there is no other college program specifically for the military which has as many incentives and benefits, and we're proud to be one of the founding institutions in this outstanding new program for the Air Force."
