Higher Education

Community colleges help fill demanding job market

The Valley is home to one of the nation’s largest community college systems, a type of education especially in demand as the job market requires more of workers.

The Maricopa Community College District The Colleges comprise  ten colleges, two skill centers and numerous education centers dedicated to educational excellence, meeting the needs of businesses and the citizens of Maricopa County. Each college is individually accredited, yet part of a larger system – the Maricopa County Community College District. District officials are attempting to purchase land in Laveen, Surprise and the Buckeye area for three future campus sites.

The District is one of the largest higher education systems in the world and the largest provider of health care workers and job training in Arizona – a major resource for business and industry and for individuals seeking education and job training.

Phoenix College: The college will celebrate its 87th anniversary in September of 2006. There are 20,872 students enrolled.

Estrella Mountain Community College has 9,705 students. Providing education for western metropolitan Phoenix, the college serves a burgeoning population of over 285,000 residents in the fastest growing region of the county, the college’s service area population is expected to grow to more than 1.6 million people by 2030.

Rio Salado Community College has several locations, 44,203 students, East Valley Paradise Valley Luke AFB and Sun City . Most Rio Salado online courses start every two weeks.

Glendale Community College has 33,694 students.

Mesa Community College, Biotechnology program, the Nursing Program, Fire Science and Fire Academy training firefighters and paramedics and there are 45,098 students

Chandler-Gilbert Community College Chandler-Gilbert has three campus locations (and 12,707 students) to serve the educational needs of the East Valley: the Pecos Campus, the Williams Campus in partnership with ASU East, and the Sun Lakes Education Center.

Scottsdale Community College is a two-year college offering some 1500 academic and non-credit classes each semester.

Located on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. With nearly 19,000 students, Scottsdale Community College offers programs in small class settings. From Motion Picture/Television Production and Culinary Arts to Nursing and American Indian Studies, students have a wide variety of programs from which to earn credits for university transfer, launch their careers, train for new ones, or pursue a special interest. The SCC Business Institute, offers customized programs to meet the needs of local business.

South Mountain Community College SMCC reflects its richly diverse communities that are a mix of rural, urban, and suburban neighborhoods. There are 7,308 students. The college is a designated Minority Institution and Hispanic-Serving Institution. A majority of area students come from South Phoenix, Laveen, Tempe, Guadalupe and Ahwatukee.

Paradise Valley Community College Has 13640 students today. Historically, PVCC has seen enrollment growth of from 4-7% each semester.

Other area community colleges include Estrella Mountain Community College, Gateway Community College, Glendale Community College, Phoenix College and South Mountain Community College.

The Tempe campus is located near the heart of metropolitan Phoenix in the city of Tempe (population 159,615). Nearby cities: Chandler, Gilbert, Glendale, Mesa, Phoenix, and Scottsdale.

The Tempe campus comprises more than 700 acres and offers outstanding physical facilities to support the university’s educational programs. The campus is characterized by broad pedestrian malls laid out in an easy-to-follow grid plan, spacious lawns, and subtropical landscaping.

The university has three campuses in the area and an extended campus in Phoenix:

• ASU’s main campus, in Tempe, one of the premier metropolitan public research universities in the nation. Enrolling more than 57,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students on three campuses in metropolitan Phoenix, ASU maintains a tradition of academic excellence in core disciplines, and has become an important global center for innovative interdisciplinary teaching and research. ASU offers outstanding resources for study and research, including libraries and museums with important collections, studios and performing arts spaces for creative endeavor, and unsurpassed state-of-the-art scientific and technological laboratories and research facilities.

• ASU Downtown Opening Celebration of ASU at the Downtown Phoenix campus was: August 15, 2006.
• ASU West in northwest Phoenix serves about 7,500 students and offers 28 bachelor’s and four master’s degrees. ASU West specializes in upper-division courses for juniors and seniors.
• ASU East, the University’s newest campus is housed at Williams Gateway Airport in Mesa. Serving more than 1,000 students in three different colleges, ASU East also offers the new bachelor of applied science degree, a program that lets associate degree holders transfer directly into ASU to finish their bachelor’s degree. ASU East is also home to the university’s agribusiness program.

University of Advancing Technology The University of Advancing Technology offers students a unique environment that combines the best of a time-honored college education with a focus on advancing technology. The University offers accredited bachelor’s and master’s degrees as well as associate’s degrees.

East Valley Institute of Technology in Mesa 480-461-4000

Extended Education in downtown Phoenix brings university services to the community through flexible programs, schedules and technologies.

Through its Campaign for Leadership fund-raising effort, ASU is raising $400 million in private donations in support of students, teachers and communities. The campaign has created 46 new endowed chairs and professorships that will enable the university to attract and retain the nation’s top faculty, ASU officials say. The campaign also has created more than 100 new undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships.

ASU is part of the Pacific 10 athletic conference and ranks fifth in the conference with a 57% student athlete graduation rate. ASU has won 24 men’s and 14 women’s conference championships in the past 16 years.

Business Week magazine has named the Arizona State University’s main campus’ College of Business MBA Day Program among the top 50 MBA programs in the country. The program was listed among the top six for value and the single best value among information management programs.

Business Week studied 61 of the nation’s 300 accredited MBA programs in ranking this year’s top 50.

University of Arizona in Scottsdale Airpark

In 2007, the Eller Executive MBA will be offered in both Scottsdale, Arizona, immediately east of Phoenix at

16425 N. Pima Rd. The campus will house the college’s 14-month Executive Master of Business Administration program and its executive education program. The college is accepting applications for the 2007 MBA program beginning in August.

The Scottsdale location can be easily reached by short flights from Los Angeles and San Diego, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Tucson, and other regional cities. The Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport also accommodates numerous direct flights from cities throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Arizona State University (ASU) is among the more than 35 institutions of higher learning in Greater Phoenix, with its main campus in Tempe. It is the fifth largest university in the United States, and expects enrollment to reach 50,000 early in the next decade. Students seek degrees in the 14 fully-accredited colleges that make up ASU. 27 percent of ASU’s students were taking an internet course during the 2005-2006 school year.

ASU Downtown College of Public Programs moving downtown in the fall of 2006. Students in the College of Nursing and University College will have the opportunity to study at any of ASU’s campuses including the new Downtown Phoenix campus. Still to come will be the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and KAET-TV/Channel 8, Arizona’s Public Broadcasting Station.

ASU WEST Currently serves over 7300 students on its northwest Phoenix.

The undergraduate and graduate-level courses lead to a wide range of degree programs and professional certificates offered through the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, the College of Teacher Education & Leadership, the College of Human Services, and the School of Global Management & Leadership.

ASU’s POLYTECHNIC campus, located in southeast Mesa, offers degree programs, unparalleled by other Arizona state universities, through the Morrison School of Agribusiness and Resource Management, East College, and the College of Technology and Applied Sciences.

W.P. Carey School of Business Carey Direct Admission:

Offered to incoming students with the highest academic qualifications, Carey Direct Admission allows students to begin in the professional program from the beginning of their academic careers. Benefits for Carey Direct scholars include access to professional program (upper-division) courses beginning in the first year of study, after completing standard course prerequisites. In order to be admitted at this level a student must meet ALL of the following requirements:

• 3.6 ABOR GPA
• And 1250 SAT Reasoning or 28 ACT score
• And no English or math competency deficiencies
• And 3.5 transfer GPA in college course taken prior to high school graduation

University of Arizona is located in Tucson.

Northern Arizona University is in Flagstaff.

University of Phoenix is a private college of 8,100 students. Bachelor’s and master’s degrees are offered in business and administration, education and nursing along with a flexible schedule for the working adult.

DeVry Institute of Technology offers bachelor’s degrees in electronics, computer information systems, business operations and accounting. Classes are geared to meet the needs of business and industry and are available day and evening. DeVry University’s Keller Graduate School of Management has a new location at 6969 E. Mayo Blvd., Ste. 150.

Western International University another private college in the Valley with 1,460 students. Associate, bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business, science and art can be earned during flexible one-month semester formats.

Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale is the only school in the United States that exclusively offers a master’s degree in international management.

The graduate business school in Glendale has been ranked as the No. 1 school for international business in the United States by U.S. News & World Report magazine.

This is the 12th consecutive year Thunderbird has earned this distinction, and it marks Thunderbird’s third No. 1 ranking in International Business in the past six months.

Thunderbird was ranked No. 1 in International Business by the Financial Times in its annual worldwide ranking of full-time MBA programs in January, and the Wall Street Journal’s poll of corporate recruiters ranked Thunderbird No. 1 in International Business last September. Source:the Business Journal

Corporate recruiters named Thunderbird the No. 1 business school in the regional category and placed Thunderbird No. 5 in the international schools category.  The corporate recruiters will look at the rankings, when hiring their MBA graduates. For the international market, schools only qualify if they attract recruiters who place a large number of their graduates in jobs outside the United States.

The school will offer a master of science in global management and a master of arts in global affairs and management in the fall of 2007.

Grand Canyon University

Of the 10,000 students currently enrolled at Grand Canyon, 7,500 are online students while the remaining 2,500 are taking traditional classes on campus. The goal is create the infrastructure so that students can access their learning material any time of the day, any day of the week, 365 days a year.

Grand Canyon University is now offering an entrepreneurship degree. The degree is taught by “tried and true” entrepreneurs and it will take 120 credit hours. In 2007, there will be MBA degree in the entrepreneurship.

Ottawa University, established in 1865, has two centers – one in Scottsdale at 13402 N. Scottsdale Road, designed for adult learners needing flexible schedules. Bachelor degrees in various fields and master’s in human resources are available.

Embry Riddle Aeronautical University Prescott. The campus has excellent programs in flight, engineering, space physics, global environment and management, global security and intelligence studies, computer science, aviation business administration, meteorology, and a graduate program in safety science. Facilities include the new 48,000-square-foot Academic Complex; the King Engineering and Technology Center; the Robertson Aviation Safety Center (featuring an accident investigation lab for studying actual wreckage from six plane crashes); and the Robertson Flight Simulation Center, which contains Frasca flight-training-devices.

The Art Institute of Phoenix What inspires you? Designing packaging or making a room warm and inviting? Stirring things up with a four-course meal for friends or drawing an animated character for a full-length feature film? Or maybe you envision your fall fashions on the runway.

Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, School of Architecture has lots of choices in the field of design.

Argosy University/Phoenix founded in 1997 as the Arizona School of Professional Psychology.

Apollo College The Associate Degree Programs offered at Westside provide opportunities for serious students.  The healthcare field continues to grow and helping to meet the employment needs of the community.

Apollo Group Inc. Online programs continue to remain the fastest growing programs at University of Phoenix.

High-Tech Institute The School is committed to a “hands-on” approach to reinforce the theory taught in the classroom and to provide the student with practical experience in the uses of “real-world” equipment. The curriculum and laboratory equipment are frequently updated to adjust to the current needs of the modern industry.

University of Advancing Technology The University offers accredited Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees as well as Associate’s degrees.   At southwest of the intersection of Baseline Road and U.S. 10 in Tempe, at 2625 W. Baseline Road.

Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Telecommunications. The Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism will open July 1st, 2006. The new center offers training for business journalists, workshops and online training for journalists, scholarships and internships for students, training for business journalism professors.

Western International University Announcing the new Peoria Campus! Now under construction at Thunderbird & 101.  at the temporary site, the Challenger Space Center.

The Scottsdale Culinary Institute is a prestigious culinary school located in the scenic world-acclaimed resort destination of Scottsdale, Arizona, where you can enjoy over 300 days of sunny weather, including the world-renowned Le Cordon Bleu programs.