University of Montevallo
The University of Montevallo is located approximately 35 miles south of Birmingham on a picturesque campus that was designed by the Olmsted Brothers, the renowned landscape architects behind Central Park in New York City and the grounds surrounding the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.
Montevallo was founded in 1896 and is Alabama’s only public liberal arts university. It has been ranked by U.S. News & World Report as a top Public Regional University and a Best Value School for 16 consecutive years. Montevallo also has been named a College of Distinction for 13 years in a row.
The university offers more than 30 degree programs and 70 majors and concentrations across five colleges: Arts and Sciences, Business, Education and Human Development, Fine Arts and Health Professions. Students benefit from small classes (the average class size is 16 students) as well as hands-on research opportunities with full-time faculty mentors that prepare them for impactful careers.
The College of Health Professions launched a new nursing program in the fall of 2024 that offers a pre-licensure BSN track and an RN to BSN track. The program is housed in the newly renovated Myrick Hall, which consists of a simulations and skills lab, two patient simulation rooms, two observation rooms, two classrooms and a nurses’ station.
The College of Education and Human Development launched a doctorate in educational leadership degree in the 2024-2025 academic year, the university’s first doctoral program.
The university saw its highest enrollment in several years for the fall 2024 semester with a total enrollment of 3,142 students, an increase of about 5.4% from the fall 2023 semester. The university welcomed 592 freshmen, the largest incoming freshman class since 2012. Graduate enrollments also increased 10.6% compared to fall 2023 with an enrollment of 449 students.
The university’s 23 NCAA Division II teams compete in the Gulf South Conference, the Peach Belt Conference and the New South Intercollegiate Swimming Conference. Additional athletic opportunities for students include cheerleading, dance, cycling, fishing and esports teams.
One of Montevallo’s hallmarks is College Night, the nation’s oldest homecoming tradition of its kind and one that has earned recognition from the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and showed up twice on the game show “Jeopardy!” For more than a century, Montevallo’s student body has divided into two sides — the gold side and the purple side — to produce an original one-act musical. Students are entirely responsible for creating scripts, music, lyrics, costumes, choreography and sets. The competing performances take place during homecoming week in February.
Jefferson State Community College Shelby-Hoover Campus
Jefferson State Community College celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2025 and remains a top choice for students in the greater Birmingham area as well as a top choice among two-year colleges in Alabama.
Jefferson State operates four campuses in Jefferson, Shelby, St. Clair and Chilton counties, serving more than 14,000 students each year. More than 3,650 high school students earn college credit through its dual enrollment program, and roughly 2,500 students complete workforce certification for in-demand jobs in as little as six weeks. The college, along with its students and alumni, add more than $485 million annually in income to its four-county service area, and for every dollar spent, the community receives approximately $19 in benefit.
The college’s Shelby-Hoover campus, located in north Shelby County, offers a variety of career and technical degree programs, including nursing, radiologic technology, physical therapy assistant, respiratory therapy, welding, manufacturing technology, law enforcement/criminal justice, medical laboratory technology, office administration, computer information systems, culinary and hospitality, emergency medical services, veterinary technology, accounting, banking and finance and business management.
In 2024, the Shelby-Hoover campus launched a new surgical technology program in response to the community’s need for trained personnel, and graduates of the two-semester program are already working at local health care facilities.
The college’s “fast-track” short certificate programs offer non-credit workforce training in career programs that can be completed in six weeks and six months. These programs prepare students for immediate employment in in-demand fields such as welding, IT, commercial driver’s license, lineworker, heavy equipment operation, web development, certified nursing assistant, medical assistant, pharmacy technician and more.
Jefferson State’s students also benefit from a range of free resources that include emergency grants, mental health counseling, peer-to-peer support, access to a food pantry, financial counseling and academic support.
For extracurricular activities, the college offers a number of clubs, honor societies, professional organizations and athletics, as well as student events that are held throughout the year.
This article appears in the February 2025 issue of Business Alabama.
