Lake Land College introduces Manufacturing CBE programs

[RbxFunRocks]

Lake Land College, a community college in Mattoon, IL, will begin three new competency-based programs in Fall 2026. All three programs are manufacturing-focused, allowing for some interesting CBE coursework opportunities such as "Motor Control Systems I" and "Pneumatic Troubleshooting I."

These are the competency-based programs that Lake Land College is introducing:

• Associate's - Applied Engineering Technology
  
• Certificate - Automation Specialist I
  
• Certificate - Automation Specialist II
  

Here's an article explaining their decision:

https://www.lakelandcollege.edu/news/com...own%20pace.

However, this program does not seem to be viable for most people here. Across Lake Land College's article and CBE program pages, the college makes reference to the FlexTech lab. This is a lab that students can access at any time of the day. From what I can gather, this in-person lab is required for some assignments. Not sure if it'll be possible to substitute the lab for more local ones (depending on where you live).

The price structure is not mentioned anywhere. My educated guess is that this program will use a per-credit pricing model.

This is the Applied Engineering Technology CBE page:

https://www.lakelandcollege.edu/academic...minor=TMAN

On one hand, Applied Engineering Technology will be one of the most technical Associate's degree majors offered in a competency-based format. Great if you want to use it to get into an engineering bachelor's program. On the other, this degree is no cakewalk. The degree requires 36 courses, some worth 0.5 and 1.5 credit hours. Only 6 of them (16 credits) are gen eds such as College Algebra and Intro to Speech Communication.

Thoughts?