US Undersecretary of Education James Kvaal paid a visit to Santa Fe Community Collegeon Monday to talk with students and staff and take a first-hand look at some of the innovative programs on campus.
Kvall says the Biden administration believes this is a time the nation needs its colleges and universities more than ever.
He says it’s hard to see how we can become the country we want to be with rising living standards and equitable opportunities and addressing challenges like COVID and climate change without a strong and affordable secondary education system.
Kvaal says SFCC and the State of New Mexico are doing a great job bringing higher education opportunities to the public.
“(SFCC) has programs as short as a couple of months, as long as a couple of years and they are creating all kinds of opportunities for people to support their families and contribute to the economy here,” he said. “New Mexico is really ahead of the curve in some of the challenges that are facing students today. We learned about tuition support programs, opportunity scholarships. We learned about efforts to support parents who are students, more than one in three students (at SFCC) are also parents and really incredible investments being made here and they’re paying off as people get skills and credentials for jobs.”
SFCC President Dr. Becky Rowley says the college is in a place of immense potential with many programs that have been recently launched that are poised to take off. Including new programs for student parents.
SFCC has seen a steady increase in the number of students post-pandemic and hopes to see more with the state’s Opportunity Scholarships program.
New Mexico Acting Secretary of Higher Education Patricia Trujillo says the department does all it can to help students and schools like SFCC and it’s especially nice when the programs can be shown off to visitors like Secretary Kvall.
Along with speaking with students about the programs offered at the school and strong involvement many of the students have in making the programs a success, Kvaal toured the fine arts program including film and television and the college’s highly acclaimed greenhouse that is working on more sustainable sources of food and biofuels from algae.
