Meridian Community College partners with William Carey University

With the National shortage of Nurses, one local Community College and University teams up to provide a smoother transition to help students get into the healthcare field.

Today Meridian Community College completed a signing with William Carey University to unify the campuses to provide better opportunities to their students who are looking to work in the Medical Field.

"Well, we are signing another transfer agreement with our friends at William Carey University in Hattiesburg on the coast. And this is going to be focused specifically on health care programs and healthcare-related programs that we give students, obviously, a chance to start here and be able to finish their degree at Carey," said MCC President Tom Huebner.

This change will allow students the opportunity for a smooth transition to get into professional programs.

"We'll run it as a three-plus three program, and they can immediately go into the Doctoral level professions like Physical Therapy or Pharmacy Pharmacist. And that's a huge change. That's a big difference. We're trying to encourage them to build that partnership for students in Mississippi to be able to have affordable education all the way up to those levels," said President of Health Professions Janet Williams.

This is the first signing William Carey University has done but plans on signing with other colleges.

"What we're trying to do is make a streamline projection for students to be able to start at the community college, come to us for the higher degrees, but enable them to even go to all the professional programs that we're offering in health care, meaning physical therapy, pharmacy, all of those professions," said Williams.

As part of the agreement, the University will be sending advisors to MCC once a week to talk with any students that are interested to make sure they are on the right path.