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Country Universities Centre
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Regional and rural communities all experience a similar problem: how do we ensure our youth and wider community have access to quality post-school opportunities and networks.Cooma is small country town with a population of 7,000 people, and its closest university and major city is over an hour's drive away. The Cooma community wanted to create a solution that would support its local students to achieve their educational aspirations, and to inject knowledge and qualifications into the local workforce. So, in 2013 Snowy Hydro Ltd and Cooma Monaro Shire Council (as it was then known as) along with key community members, jointly funded the establishment of the Cooma Universities Centre. In 2014, Snowy Hydro gifted the Centre to the Cooma community, and the Cooma Universities Centre became a charitable, incorporated, not-for-profit organisation run by a community Board of Directors. The Centre operated for five years without any government funding with Snowy Hydro Ltd and the Snowy Monaro Shire Council continuing their support. During this time, the NSW Government recognised the impact of the Centre on the local community and provided seed funding to expand our model into five regional communities in NSW. In 2017, we re-branded to "Country Universities Centre" with the Cooma Universities Centre changing their name to "CUC Snowy Monaro", and our incredible journey to change the future of regional education began.We currently have Centres in Goulburn, Broken Hill, Cooma, Narrabri & Moree, Grafton, and Griffith & Leeton. By 2021, we will have established Centres in Roma, Wonthaggi, St George & Dirranbandi, Kempsey, Parkes, and Ulladulla. We are excited about the future of regional education, and look forward to seeing the impact of the Country Universities Centre on higher education outcomes for regional rural and remote communities.