BEAUMONT, Texas — The Lamar Institute of Technology is offering fall and spring semester classes to former Vista College students, who were abruptly left without a school to complete their degree at mid-semester.
Vista College officials sent an email to staff and students on Friday, October 8 afternoon announcing the abrupt closure of all campuses due to "financial circumstances." Students were seen leaving the Beaumont campus building with their belongings, wondering how they were going to finish their degrees.
Upon hearing of the former students' dilemma, officials at a Southeast Texas college jumped into action, laying out a roadmap to help the students finish what they started.
“Our faculty and staff, during the course of the weekend, ‘Hey look, what are we going to do? Dr. Howard, are you aware of this? They're closed. What can we do to help,'” Lonnie Howard, president of LIT said.
Howard said his staff wanted to make sure the former Vista College students did not miss a beat. The campus president said the students can continue their education in LIT classrooms.
“Their school closed abruptly, and so now, they really don't know what the next step in the process is,” Howard said. “It was really important to us, being in the higher education business, to see what we really could do to help these students.”
Any former Vista students interested in continuing their education at LIT can call 409-880-3281 or visit the college's website for more information.
“Simply go to our website, lit.edu, and they can follow directions there. In fact, we've set up a special link for them as well,” Howard said.
For students worried about their credits not successfully transferring over, Howard said LIT has innovative ways to convert credits.
“We can take non-credit classes and through credit by examination PLE, Prior Learning Examinations, they can actually receive college credit,” Howard said.
Howard said LIT has an upcoming semester that begins on October 18, so he encourages all former Vista students to explore their educational opportunities as soon as possible.
“We're growing, but we have room for the Vista College students also, so it's not too late to enroll,” he said.
