Laurens County Higher Education
LAURENS COUNTY:
William Plumber Jacobs founded Presbyterian College in 1880, and for many years it was predominately an institution for the education of men. Presbyterian College became co-educational in 1965. Presbyterian College has established itself as one of the top colleges in the country and is a fully accredited four-year private, co-educational, liberal arts institution, classified by the Carnegie Foundation in its top category of small liberal arts schools.
Satellite operations of the University of South Carolina Union at Laurens began in 1983 with classes offered at the local junior high school. Since that time, the school has relocated to the Laurens County Higher Education Center, a state-of-the-art facility that opened in early 2002. USCU-L is especially attractive to adult students who return either to complete a degree or to take classes which their careers require or enhance their knowledge of various academic subjects.
Afternoon and evening courses are the mainstay of the curriculum. In the face of skyrocketing college costs, some high school graduates also begin their undergraduate studies at USCU-L. Through its concurrent enrollment program, the school also offers qualified high school juniors and seniors the opportunity to begin their college coursework before graduation at a reduced fee. They may choose from a variety of classes in the humanities and the social and natural sciences which can be applied to associate or baccalaureate degree programs.
For teachers in area school districts, USCU-L is a source of recertification or advanced degree classes. The school also serves as a registration and testing site for many telecommunications classes originating at the university’s main campus in Columbia.
Piedmont Technical College became the eighth of the 16-member institution in the South Carolina Technical Education System when it was established in 1966 to serve Laurens, Abbeville, Edgefield, Greenwood, McCormick, Newberry and Saluda Counties. Those seven counties represent the largest geographic area served by any technical college in the state. Piedmont’s main campus is located on a 65-acre plot on Emerald Road in Greenwood. The Laurens County Center of Piedmont Tech moved to the Laurens County Higher Education Center on Medical Ridge Road in Clinton in 2002, after more than 11 years at their East Main Street location in Laurens.
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