CTC in top three of popular school's for military

Central Texas College was ranked third among the top 50 most popular colleges chosen by active-duty service members in a recent poll by the Military Times “EDGE” publication. The poll was based on the numbers of course enrollments. CTC finished third behind the University System of Maryland and the American Public University System based in Charles Town, West Virginia.

To create the list, Military Times requested data for course enrollments by school from Army, Navy, Air Force (including active-duty Air National Guard), the Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Army National Guard. By combining the lists and grouping schools in named college systems together, Military Times were able to determine which schools served tuition assistance users the most during the 2008 fiscal year.

Among the individual military branches, CTC ranked first with the Army (53,242 courses), fourth with the Marine Corps (6,031 courses); seventh with the Navy (5,675 courses); and ninth with the Air Force (5,701 courses).

More than 645,000 active-duty military service members enrolled in the military's voluntary education program during the last fiscal year. Of those, at least 450,000 took college-level courses. Active duty service members may receive $250 per credit hour (or $4,500 a year) using federal tuition assistance.

A Department of Defense study shows distance learning (online classes) has outpaced classroom-based courses in all branches of the military. Therefore, five of the top 50 and three of the top five colleges on the list are online-only colleges. CTC offers both online and classroom options for military members with sites on 25 military installations across the continental U.S. and Alaska and Hawaii as well as 17 countries in Europe and the Middle East; 30 sites in the Pacific Far East including Korea, mainland Japan and Okinawa; and Naval ships at sea. In addition to classroom and online classes, CTC also offers alternative education delivery methods such as course on compact discs (CDs) and personal digital assistants (PDAs).