|Photo by Michael J. Metts|

Students work four hours a week for 18 months and walk out with a Master’s degree. This is the design of Spring Arbor’s Graduate and Professional Studies program. GPS has eight different Master’s degrees and five different Associate and Bachelor’s degrees available, including degrees in Business Administration, Education and Nursing.

Why enter SAU’s GPS program? The Spring Arbor Master’s program was ranked in the top-tier of Midwestern Colleges and Universities by “U.S. News and World Report” in August 2009. Additionally, there are 13 different learning sites in Michigan, among them Traverse City, Metro-Detroit, and Lansing; Spring Arbor is beginning to extend these sites into several surrounding cities and has decided to expand its Lansing location by opening a venue in Howell.

“I’m really excited about it,” Roxanne Curry, an Admissions and Corporate Relations Specialist, says. “The people are fantastic and they just have a lot of interesting and exciting goals.” Megan White, a prospective student currently enrolled in the GPS program, says that she “…heard about the program a long time ago, and then I saw that they were starting [a learning site] in Howell.”

The site will open on March 22, but a location has yet to be decided. The opening program will be a Bachelor of Arts in Family Life Education, developed for students wanting to go into human service, criminal justice, foster care and more
“Spring Arbor University wants to extend opportunities to the non-traditional student,” says Dawn Welch, another SAU Admissions and Corporate Relations Specialist. The program is geared toward working, non-traditional students in their mid-twenties to mid-fifties. Ergo, the classes are one night a week for four hours with an average class size of 15 students.

The primary form of teaching is through reading, writing and group discussions, giving students the opportunity to network with each other. Each student enters into an independent study in which the students create their own family development program. About 70% of students who enroll graduate from this course.

The application process is similar to becoming a traditional student except a minimum of 58 credits is required for entrance into the program. The tuition is about $415 a credit hour, which includes the cost of books. Once enrolled, each student will receive the iGNITE scholarship. This scholarship is 20% off all tuition. The Federal Pell Grant and Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant are offered, as well. There is also additional aid available if a family has experienced a loss of income.

GPS not only provides a quality liberal arts education but is convenient in location and affordable.

“Any time we’re able to open up a new site,” says Dr. Martin Covey, the Director of Family Life and Family Study, “we give people the opportunity to reach their goals.”