More than 70 colleges and universities will make sales pitches to Beaufort County public and private high school juniors and seniors Thursday, Sept. 13, at a college fair that’s expected to attract more than 2,400 students to Bluffton High School.  Students from Jasper and Hampton counties are also participating.
Schools advertising their programs to students will range from small private colleges to large public universities, from as near as the University of South Carolina Beaufort and the Technical College of the Lowcountry to the University of Michigan and Seton Hall University in New Jersey. Students will visit booths manned by college and university representatives who will answer students’ questions about academic offerings, tuition costs and scholarship opportunities.
Juniors and seniors from across Beaufort County will be transported in school buses driven from their local high schools to Bluffton High. Each high school will be allotted its own time slot with college representatives.
Superintendent Valerie Truesdale said that the district’s annual college fair emphasizes the importance of students continuing their educations.
“A high school diploma is viewed as a minimum credential in today’s job market because most careers require education beyond high school,” Truesdale said.  “Our College Fair reinforces that idea, and it also gives students a sense of their true potential when these 70 colleges and universities come to the Lowcountry and treat them as potential customers.”