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Unconventional Campuses Are 'The Future of Our County'
Pablo Rubio and Elena Aguirre, who completed their bachelors degrees in social work at the Universities at Shady Grove campus, celebrate graduation with their classmates.
(Rafael Crisostomo - Rafael Crisostomo for The Washington Post)
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Hopkins, which opened its campus in 1988, also has plans to triple the size of its Shady Grove campus with four more buildings over the next 10 to 12 years.
Last week, as the Universities at Shady Grove graduation party began, Huang and about 400 celebrants filled the auditorium to overflowing. Strollers spilled into the aisles, parents and spouses held camera phones above their heads.
The formal cap-and-gown ceremonies are later this month on the home campuses of the seven University of Maryland schools with branches at Shady Grove, which does not issue its own diplomas. Last week's celebration honored the 311 undergraduates who earned their diplomas in classrooms at Shady Grove.
In some ways, the event progressed the way it would at a more traditional college, with speeches by school administrators, a slide show featuring highlights of campus life, and periodic wisecracks from the audience.
The uniqueness of USG was obvious in the diversity of students. Many have kids and spouses. Not everyone was in their twenties. Students have a wide range of ethnic backgrounds.
This year's student enrollment is 58 percent minority. Eighty percent live in the county and 68 percent work and pay taxes here, Edelstein said.
Students pay the tuition charged by their home school -- currently anywhere from $5,000 to $7,500 a year. The students' fees are as much as $800 a year less than at the home campus, depending on whether students are full time or part time. That kind of savings alone made a big difference to Tincy Thomas, 22, a Gaithersburg resident receiving a degree in accounting this year from the University of Maryland at College Park.
After graduation and a month-long break, Thomas will begin working with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, where she interned while at USG.
"For me, the choice was easy," said Thomas, who said she paid for her education through a combination of summer internships, help from her parents and a scholarship from an accounting organization. "For me it's the convenience; it's closer, and it costs less. Plus, you get to know your classmates."
The audience cheered guest speaker Tom Perez, the Montgomery County Council president, as he spoke of his background as the son of immigrants. Perez encouraged the students to be proud of their "bilingual, bicultural heritage."
"There are so many similarities between this campus and Montgomery County," Perez said. "This, like Montgonery County, is a minority-majority community. . . . This is one of the crown jewels of Montgomery. This is why businesses want to locate here. You are proof that [these colleges] are the future of our county."
