Georgia Highlands College Fact Sheet
President: Dr. John Randolph Pierce
3175 Cedartown Highway, SE
Rome, GA 30161
- Main: 706-802-5000
- Admissions: 706-295-6339
- Financial Aid: 706-295-6311
- Compliance, Ethics, and Reporting Hotline: 877-516-3436
Institution Profile
Georgia Highlands College (GHC), a two-year institution, was founded in 1970 to provide educational opportunities for the physical, intellectual, and cultural development of a diverse population in seven northwest Georgia counties. With the advent of distance learning technologies, specialty programs, off-campus centers, collaborative arrangements, and cooperative degree programs with technical institutes, the College has expanded its scope of influence beyond the institution’s original geographical area.
The philosophy of Georgia Highlands College is expressed in the beliefs that education is essential to the intellectual, physical, economic, social, emotional, cultural, and environmental well-being of individuals and society and that education should be geographically and physically accessible and affordable. In support of this philosophy, the College maintains a teaching/learning environment, which promotes inclusiveness and provides educational opportunities, programs, and services of excellence in response to documented needs.
The college has more than doubled its enrollment in the last five years, and now serves more than 4,500 academic and 5,000 continuing education students annually. As a commuter college, the institution draws from Floyd, Polk, Chattooga, Gordon, Bartow, Cobb, Paulding, Cherokee, Douglas, Carroll and Haralson Counties in Georgia. It also attracts students from eastern Alabama and southeastern Tennessee.
Georgia Highlands’ students are enrolled in 48 transfer and career programs leading to two-year associate degrees, many in health-care fields. The most popular majors are nursing, business and education. The nursing program has recently expanded, adding a new cohort in Marietta and enabling the college to graduate 150 license-eligible students each year.
GHC also maintains a cooperative agreement with the University of West Georgia, so that students on the Floyd campus can continue at that site and earn their bachelor’s degree in early childhood from West Georgia. Additionally, the college offers cooperative programs with Coosa Valley Technical College and North Metro Technical College. Two new sites in Paulding and Douglas Counties are scheduled to open in fall 2009.
GHC has an economic impact on the Floyd County area of more than $89 million.