Go Far off to College? No Need to for Castle Rock Students
New program allows students to start earning college credit in high school and then finish the degree at the local Sturm Collaboration Campus.
Castle Rock students can now go from high school to a four-year degree without leaving town, thanks to the new Sturm Collaboration Campus that opened in 2019 on the grounds of Arapahoe Community College (ACC).
The $40 million campus is the result of a partnership between ACC, Douglas County School District and Colorado State University (CSU).
“This campus allows students to begin obtaining college credit in high school, finish an associate degree at ACC, then continue two more years of coursework to receive a bachelor’s degree from CSU – all in one convenient location,” says Jill Garber, director of the CSU System Engagement Center at Sturm.
Garber says that besides the convenience of attending college in Castle Rock, affordability is another benefit of enrolling at Sturm. “For example, the CSU accounting degree program is about half the price that it costs at the CSU-Fort Collins main campus,” she says.
Sturm Collaboration Campus
The campus has courses and degree pathways in secure software, cybersecurity, accounting and IT, and there are plans to expand into management, health care, social work and more.
Garber says that several area businesses are also getting involved with the campus to provide students with opportunities, such as job shadowing, apprenticeships and paid internships.
“We already had one student at Sturm who was interning in Denver with accounting firm Plante Moran, and that student has now graduated from Sturm with a CSU accounting degree and is working full time at Plante Moran,” she says. Sturm has day and evening classes, and the campus has an Arapahoe/Douglas Works! Workforce Center that offers free services to job seekers and businesses.