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Hope for Donora: A community college center could mean big things

Hope for Donora: A community college center could mean big things

The Community College of Allegheny County board took a smart step on Thursday when trustees agreed to pursue federal funding to study the feasibility of a new academic and workforce training center in Washington County.

Washington County lacks its own community college — those in Allegheny, Beaver, Butler and Westmoreland are among 14 in the state — and CCAC already has a center in the Washington Crown Center mall where 450 students annually study business and accounting.

Twenty-eight miles across the county, the borough of Donora has purchased a former Ringgold School District elementary building and 34 acres with hopes of spurring development in an area that never rebounded from the collapse of the steel industry.

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The site, paired with CCAC’s history of extending its programming south to include one center in Washington County, makes this a sensible goal. If CCAC wins the $50,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development grant, it would be used to study what modifications the building would require and the programming needs of the region. If the results are positive, the bigger step will be raising the estimated $2 million to $4 million it would take to create the center.

Doing so would represent a logical extension of CCAC’s mission. The college has four campuses and three smaller centers in Allegheny County.

CCAC has been particularly nimble in tailoring educational and job-training programs to meet the needs of local industry, exemplified by the popularity of and success in preparing hundreds of individuals for jobs in the oil and gas fields.

There is promise for Donora in the prospect of a CCAC center tailored to the needs of the mid-Mon Valley.

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First Published: February 7, 2016, 5:00 a.m.

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