President Obama Committed To Helping Low-Income Students Get Into College
By Steve Patterson
PHILADELPHIA (CBS)--President Barack Obama spent Thursday meeting with university presidents around the country, asking for an expansion in access to higher education.
The message travels locally. Officials with Montgomery County Community College say they've expanded multiple outreach programs both on campus and in the community.
Several programs including KEYS and the Minority Student Mentoring Initiative focus on lower income and inner city students where there isn't an emphasis on college prep.
"We are passionate about it because We see it every day," said West Campus Vice President Steady Moono. "We see students coming to us with low expectation, not sure what they are going to do with just incredible odds stacked against them."
Moono oversees one of the ten outreach programs at Montco CC. The university has 28 partnerships with higher education universities including Temple, Bucknell and Bryn Mawr.
Moono says we're in the middle of a community college boom. The college's student body that has grown from about 14,000 to about 21,000
"When they come to us we say we are going to walk alongside you and make sure you are successful," Moono said.