JVS and Bunker Hill Community College Offer FREE College Credit

Caption: Bridges to College students in class with Bunker Hill Community College Professor Janine Taylor. Photo credit: Victoria Bilcik

BOSTON, MA

In Massachusetts alone, employers will seek an estimated 12,000 employees with an Associate Degree in the next year, according to the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education. In an effort to make employment possible for as many people as they can, the Jewish Vocational Service (JVS) offers free college credit to students in its Bridges to College program, open to anyone with a high school diploma, through a new partnership with Bunker Hill Community College.

Since 2009, Bridges to College has helped hundreds of clients become successful college students with 23 weeks of college preparatory courses and coaching. With this new partnership, JVS provides an even faster track to students seeking higher education.

“The partnership is a really exciting opportunity for students,” said Korynn Stoyanoff, a pre-college instructor at Bridges to College. “They will leave with six college credit hours before they even get to Bunker Hill. It also eliminates the need for the college placement test for entrance into college-level English.”

Information sessions for the January 2015 class cycle at Bridges to College are held every Friday morning at JVS. For more information, visit jvs-boston.org/bridges, or visit the Bridges to College Facebook or Twitter pages.

Janine Taylor, a professor at Bunker Hill participating in the partnership, brought her Learning Communities Seminar to JVS, and said she hopes to motivate students at JVS to go to college.

“I think it makes students more determined to get an education,” she said. “They become less afraid to enter Bunker Hill and they will enter knowing that they are students.”

Galo Espinosa, a current Bridges to College student who moved to the United States two years ago from Ecuador, said that the program is a perfect starting point for students who are unsure of where to find the opportunities that are right for them.

“We are learning more English. We are preparing to go to college, and we are making connections with other people and Bunker Hill,” he said.

According to Taylor, higher education is essential to create a stable nationwide workforce, empowering students to live their own American Dream.

“Education is not only an opportunity; it is a basic light,” she said. “It helps to raise people out of poverty, and that’s extremely important. It builds future generations of lifelong learners.”

By Victoria Bilcik and Joyce Lin