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Midlands Technical College awarded $408k in federal grant funds

Submitted by: Amanda K. Taylor on Feb 17, 2010 at 5:39 pm Tagged with: College, Education, Information Technology Source: Midlands Technical College

Midlands Technical College (MTC) has been awarded $408,000 by the US Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to expand broadband access to its students, upgrade academic technology, and increase broadband use among the extended MTC community.

The funds will be used to purchase equipment for ten computing centers on the Airport, Beltline, Batesburg-Leesville, and Harbison campuses, as well for the Fairfield County Quick Jobs Training Center now under construction. MTC will also use the grant funding to produce an outreach workshop series covering topics including the variety of broadband devices available on campus, Internet search basics, reliability of information, financial literacy, career development and others.

“Midlands Technical College continually seeks ways to make education accessible and affordable for its students,” said Dr. Marshall (Sonny) White, Jr., MTC president. “This federal funding for expanded broadband access will provide MTC with a unique opportunity to influence and educate a large portion of the current and future workforce.”

Over the past year, the MTC Beltline and Airport Campus Academic Success Centers served more than 16,500 unduplicated users.

Midlands Technical College is a comprehensive, multi-campus, public, two-year college serving the primary region of Richland, Lexington and Fairfield counties of South Carolina. The college enrolls approximately 18,000 credit students annually, and provides continuing education to 30,000 individuals and hundreds of area businesses each year. MTC is the largest provider of transfer students to the University of South Carolina.