Students considering full-time enrollment at Columbia Gorge Community College now have special incentive in the form of free tuition for selected college credits.

The college’s budget committee this year approved a plan to encourage full-time enrollment through a tuition exemption applied for qualifying credit loads. Under the “15 th Credit and Above Free” incentive, students only pay tuition for the first 14 credit hours per term; no tuition is charged for the 15 th credit, or for any credit hour beyond that up to 20 credits per term. (Students must obtain special permission to take more than 20 credit hours.)

You may have noticed that there are a number Quality Matters (QM) logos in the schedule of classes at Columbia Gorge Community College (CGCC). This indicates that the class has met quality standards after a review by a three person panel of instructors, led by a master reviewer and including an external reviewer (from another college or university) and a subject matter expert.

Quality course design standards are a cornerstone of online learning at CGCC. The college adopted QM standards in 2004, using them to evaluate every new hybrid or online course. By 2009, college faculty began certification as peer reviewers and in 2011, the annual reviews started. During the winter of 2018, these teams worked together: