By Grant Bachand, Newsroom Director

The University of Northern British Columbia, College of New Caledonia, Northern Lights College, and Northwest Community College announced today along with the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training that they would be launching a new marketing strategy to promote Northern BC. A news website, studynorthbc.com is the manifestation of that partnership. The idea is to bring potential students from all over the world to Northern BC to study. The campaign will target Vancouver and other lower mainland communities, other provinces, and international students from around the world.

The idea for this program was born in one of the quarterly meetings of the heads of the four Northern post-secondary institutions last fall. The Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills, and Training came on board with an investment around $350,000 to make a total budget of just under $500,000. According to the Minister some of the institutions in the north have been seeing stagnant or declining enrollment numbers, and this program is designed to address that problem. The program will run until the end of December, and the Ministery will be reviewing the success of the program as it goes along, and may be increased if there is a demand.

"These are investments, so people aren't going to come to things they do not know." Melanie Mark Minister of Advanced Education, Skills and Training. "They are not going to travel up North to see what the North looks like; we need to bring these tools to them." When asked what her definition of success would look like the Minister stated: "Some of the Institutions are at 47% so if it goes to 48% that is a success." The aim is to simply go up not down in enrollment numbers for these northern institutions.