Students at San Bernardino Valley College and Crafton Hills College will soon have access to real-time lessons in radio, broadcast television, imbedded news, advertising,  and many more production platforms across the digital media world.

Before now, similar quality media courses have been limited to high priced options, or an hour’s drive away.

John Longville, president of the San  Bernardino  Community College District Board of Trustees, said their recent media academies are an extraordinary development for the region. They hold great potential to get students into lucrative careers.

The move also allows the campuses to take advantage of the broadcast studio stations that the district owns, along with its high-end teaching equipment.  Another big advantage is the low cost, and under the Promise Program many students will be able to access the training and resources for free.

“Students will not be saddled with massive debt,” he said. “The reality is it’s very difficult for most students to afford the kind of media instruction that we’re now going to be offering at Valley College and Crafton Hills.”

Stackable certificates at both campuses run a gamut of programming and media platforms. Potentially, he said the local economy will also benefit from expanding local ties, and strengthening the community.

“We will have people producing stories of the inland empire that will be broadcast on our local television and radio and various other media. All of this is invaluable,” he said.

Longville said it’s very rare to have a population as large as the inland empire without a commercial television station.  At best, he said the area only gets small snippets of news, mostly negative, from the Los Angeles television channels, which underscores the need for a central television station.

Although not an immediate goal, he said television is definitely on the radar. “In the long run, it’s going to take us a while to fulfill all of these dreams,” he said. “We’ve already begun expanding our news coverage on KVCR. As our program expands, we will also move into more news on KVCR television as well.”

At Valley College, students can sample courses in broadcast television, podcasts, film, entertainment, streaming services, sports, over the top distribution channels, imbedded news, and interactive storytelling.

Crafton Hills campus will offer eCommerce, website development & design,  animation, video games, augmented reality, virtual reality and data visualization.

SBCCD board member Joseph Williams is most excited that local students can now access some of the best learning environments for technology available through the TV and radio station.

“We’re bringing that information here, in part picking up some of the slack left by the Art Institute going out of business,” he said.

Potentially, he feels that the media academy can branch off in several lucrative directions. “It’s part of our investment in KVCR to try to make sure that students have access to the technologies that are at the TV and radio station,” he said

Journalism is part of the course work, but students will also learn about high-resolution 4K cameras, social media and ad placement, search engine optimization, to name a few.

“I think it creates more opportunity for entrepreneurial opportunities,” he said. “What we’re working on is the level of technology you would get in the big city like Los Angeles.”