By KEN CARPENTER
Great Bend Post
High school students in Kansas have the opportunity to take a number of tuition-free career-technical courses at Barton Community College, and they can do it online. The tuition is free thanks to a state-funded program. According to Karly Little, Barton's Coordinator of Community Education, the program is available to high school sophomores, juniors and seniors.
"They can take those classes and really only pay for books and sometimes things like background checks and testing fees," Little said.
Little said many students are able to earn a certificate from Barton at the same time they are finishing high school. They can then work in that career field while they are attending college or go directly into the workforce.
Little described some of the courses that are currently available at Barton.
"We have a really extensive list of those online classes," Little noted. "You may think career and technical, those are just the plumbing and the welding and the carpentry. We have those, but also our business and our accounting, ag and early childhood, networking, programming, a lot of those classes qualify for that funding as well. And we've got a great online list."
That online list for career technical education can be found HERE. More information about online courses, in general, can be found HERE.