Career College Association Aids South Florida Displaced Students

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Nov. 10, 2015 - PRLog -- The Florida Association of Postsecondary Schools and Colleges (FAPSC) and its member schools have actively been supporting the students who formerly were enrolled at Dade Medical College and the University of Southernmost Florida, which ceased operations Oct. 30.

While neither of these schools were current members, the association for Florida’s career colleges, as always, remains focused on student needs.  Private, career schools in Florida provide education and training for more than 250,000 students each year.  The sector has enough capacity to provide opportunities for those students whose programs were closed.

As such, several FAPSC schools from the South Florida and Jacksonville areas have been coordinating with the Florida Commission for Independent Education (CIE), which has contacted former students and established a website (app1.fldoe.org/cie/info.htm) for updates. The site has detailed information about transcripts, transferring to another school and loan forgiveness.  In addition, opportunities for all nursing students who had nearly completed their training are being provided by local institutions to allow the students to complete their nursing programs and prepare to sit for their licensure examinations.

“Students and their success has and will always be the central focus of all of the schools in our sector,” said Curtis Austin, executive director of FAPSC. “Like many, we were saddened to see how the sudden closures impacted students who had no direction about next steps.”

Austin added that FAPSC and its member schools are part of the solution for the students. “We hope the impacted students will remain steadfast in their commitment to their education in their fields of study – Florida’s workforce needs skilled workers and they deserve to complete their training,” he said.

FAPSC (fapsc.org) has been the voice of Florida’s career schools since 1956. The association of more than 250 member schools works on behalf of the more than 1,000 licensed private career schools and colleges in Florida that prepare students each year for employment in more than 200 occupational fields by offering degree programs, certification and training.