RICHMOND – On Wednesday, Governor Mark R. Warner presided over the signing of an historic agreement between the Commonwealth and 62 public and private, two- and four-year colleges and universities, to provide any student in Virginia with an opportunity to get a jump-start on their college education while still in high school.

The Commonwealth College Course Collaborative (CCCC), proposed as part of Governor Warner’s Education for a Lifetime initiatives last fall, is a group of agreed-upon subjects that any student in Virginia can complete in high school, either through Advanced Placement (AP) or dual-enrollment programs, and receive college degree credit from 14 public, four-year colleges and universities, 23 community colleges. The deal also includes the two-year Richard Bland College and 24 private institutions that are members of the Council of Independent Colleges in Virginia.

The CCCC was signed in ceremonies Wednesday at Virginia Union University in Richmond, one of the private school signatories to the agreement.

Governor Warner is a former member of the VUU Board of Trustees.

&uot;Today’s announcement is a great milestone for education in Virginia,&uot; Governor Warner said. &uot;We have come together with the presidents of Virginia’s leading institutions of higher education – both public and private – to take a huge step forward in our efforts to strengthen high school by providing consistency and predictability to what courses will be recognized for college degree credit by our major institutions of higher education.&uot;

Currently, about one in five Virginia high school seniors takes a dual-enrollment, college-level class, and about three-quarters of high schools offer some Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Under CCCC, eligible high school seniors can complete their high school diploma and concurrently earn at least 13 college credit hours in General Biology, General Psychology, U.S. History I and U.S. History 2.

&uot;Students earning a college degree in seven semesters instead of eight can save an average of $5,000 in tuition, &uot; Governor Warner said. &uot;This initiative also will help to alleviate the space crunch expected with the influx of 61,000 additional students seeking admission to Virginia colleges and universities by the year 2010.&uot;

Not only does the Collaborative represent an expansion in the number of courses that these institutions will accept, but there has also been an expansion in how students can complete course requirements.

For example, in the past a university may only have accepted a psychology credit earned through Advanced Placement (AP) coursework; they now have agreed to accept a psychology credit earned through dual enrollment at a community college, Virginia’s new Virtual AP program, or the International Baccalaureate program.

&uot;By forming this collaborative, we have created a level of uniformity and predictability in how Virginia’s colleges and universities will treat credits earned in high school as well as community college transfer credits,&uot;

Warner said. &uot;These agreements will help strengthen higher education in Virginia, and will help make the junior and senior years of high school more challenging.&uot;

The following is a partial list of institutions signing the CCCC:

-Christopher Newport University

-College of William and Mary

-George Mason University

-James Madison University Norfolk State University

-Old Dominion University

-Radford University

-Richard Bland

-University of Mary Washington

-University of Virginia

-University of Virginia’s College at Wise

-Virginia Commonwealth University

-Virginia Community College System

-Virginia State University

-Virginia Tech

-Because of its specialized curriculum, the public Virginia Military Institute is not participating at this time.

-Averett University

-Bluefield College

-Bridgewater College

-Eastern Mennonite University

-Emory & Henry College

-Ferrum College

-Hampden-Sydney College

-Hampton University

-Hollins University

-Jefferson College of Health Sciences

-Lynchburg College

-Mary Baldwin College

-Marymount University

-Randolph-Macon College

-Randolph-Macon Woman’s College

-Roanoke College

-Saint Paul’s College

-Shenandoah University

-Sweet Briar College

-University of Richmond

-Virginia Intermont College

-Virginia Union University

-Virginia Wesleyan College

-Washington and Lee University