Academics
For students in the Greater Lansing area that want to increase their employability by taking rigorous and relevant career courses, or for beginning college students who want to start their college experience in a nurturing, low-key environment, Lansing Community College is a good solution. The college has a mix of career technical and academic programs aimed at improving the local work force and preparing students for a four-year college.
Michigan is currently in the throes of an economic shift, as the automobile industry retools and jobs once available in the industry become more scarce. Community colleges like LCC are vital to the state’s interest in retraining the work force to adapt to a more diversified economy.
Lansing Community College offers about 100 degree programs and more than 90 career certificate programs. The career certificate programs give students a credential in a specific employment field they can use to demonstrate to employers they have a recognized skill in this field. Career certificate programs allow workers to quickly gain certification in career fields, allowing them to quickly find a new job if they’ve been displaced from an old one, or increase their value to their current organization.
The most popular majors at Lansing Community College are liberal arts, health professions, business marketing, computer and information sciences and visual and performing arts.
One interesting program the college offers is a sign language program. LCC has strong connections to the deaf community, and the offering of this program is a sign of this link.
The college’s health programs are also strong, and it is estimated that the college produces 75 percent of the area’s health care workers.
In addition to the traditional two-year college program at Lansing Community College, the institution also allows students to work toward bachelor’s and master’s degrees from six partnering universities from its downtown Lansing University Center. This allows many non-traditional students who don’t have the option of moving from their jobs and families to attend a four-year university the opportunity to obtain a four-year or master’s degree at home in Lansing. The college’s university partners include: Siena Heights University, Ferris State University, Lawrence Technological University, Northwood University, University of Michigan-Flint, and Western Michigan University.
A large number of Lansing Community College students use the college as their first step toward a four-year degree. Like most community colleges, Lansing Community College offers core academic programs that most four-year college students take in their first two years of college. However, attending Lansing Community College allows those students to take those courses at a much less expensive rate than they would if they attended a four-year college or university. In addition to the reduced costs, many Lansing high school graduates benefit from completing their first years of college at home because it gives them a chance to get used to the demands of college life before moving out of mom and dad’s house. About 6,000 Lansing Community College students transfer to larger four-year universities each year. The college has articulation agreements with 48 colleges and universities inside and outside Michigan that ensure credits transfer from one institution to another.
Lansing Community College is accredited by the North Central Association of Schools and Colleges. The NCA accredits schools in Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The NCA also accredits schools in the Navajo nation. More than 1,000 colleges are accredited by the NCA.
The college maintains an educational outreach outside the campus, providing educational opportunities to K-12 students such as Saturday School and gifted programs and also provides non-credit educational opportunities for adults as well.
