NPC was founded in 2003 and has been continuously accredited by the DEAC since 2006. Initially offering 10 courses and one academic program, NPC now offers seven academic programs and more than 100 courses. NPC courses are synchronous, instructor-led and feature live interaction with instructors and lectures and other materials that can be viewed or downloaded for offline use by students at any time.
Mission
Our mission is to provide high-quality, accessible education that empowers students with diverse backgrounds and life circumstances to fulfill their academic and professional potential. We seek to provide students with the skills and knowledge they need for personal growth and career advancement, and to inspire students to promote honesty, ethical behavior, fairness, and equity in their communities.
Admissions Criteria
To apply for admission to any undergraduate programs, please complete and submit our
online application form.
If there is information that you are not comfortable providing online, please call NPC’s admissions office at 800-371-6105, ext. 0, to discuss your options. Only individuals who have earned a high school diploma, G.E.D., or equivalent will be considered for admission to NPC. No other formal training or education is required. However, individuals should only apply to NPC if they are capable of reading at a college level and if they are committed to putting a significant amount of work and effort into their education.
Admissions criteria for graduate programs can be found
here.
The goals of National Paralegal College are:
- To provide students with a rigorous academic foundation as well as the career-oriented skills necessary to succeed in the workplace.
- To use technology to bring the interactivity of the brick-and-mortar school experience into the student's home or office.
- To create a collaborative online learning environment by encouraging student and faculty participation so that students can learn from each other as well as from the faculty.
- To give individual attention and instruction to each NPC student through the diligent efforts of involved and interested professors and academic support personnel.
- To encourage student learning by dynamic instruction that piques student interest in the subject matter.
- To prepare NPC students with the skills necessary to work in the legal or business environment.
- To provide effective placement assistance services so that students can secure satisfying jobs in which they can make full use of their NPC education.
- To enable students to research, locate, read, understand and interpret materials such as cases, statutes, regulations, scholarly publications and other sources that can be vital to productivity.
- To train NPC students to appropriately apply rules and regulations to facts of hypothetical situations as they are likely to arise during the students' professional work.
- To ensure that NPC students are acutely aware of their ethical responsibilities in the work environment.
- To provide students with a robust curriculum that affords them the opportunity to develop advanced skills relevant to their course of study.
- To provide degree students with a well-rounded education by supplementing their core education with studies in a variety of general education disciplines.
Academic Programs
National Paralegal College offers programs leading to:
All programs consist of highly interactive structured courses.
To facilitate the ability of students with college credits to earn their certificates or degrees in an expeditious and efficient manner, NPC accepts certain transfer credits earned in pursuit of a degree from colleges and universities accredited by an accrediting agency recognized by the United States Department of Education or a foreign equivalent.
NPC accepts transfer credits that are recommended for credit by the American Council on Education (ACE), the National College Credit Recommendation Service (NCCRS) or the Connecticut Credit Assessment Program (CCAP), provided that transfer credit from noncollegiate sources may not constitute more than 25% of the student's program's credit requirements. For example, a student seeking an associate's degree in paralegal studies requires 60 credits in all, and so may transfer a maximum of 15 credits towards that degree from noncollegiate sources. In addition, transfer credit from noncollegiate sources may not replace a core course in any academic program. For example, a "Torts" course from a noncollegiate source may not be used to replace the "Torts and Personal Injury" core course requirement for NPC's paralegal certificate, Associate in Paralegal Studies and Bachelor of Science in Legal Studies programs. For this purpose, "noncollegiate sources" means credit for any course not provided on the transcript of a college or university accredited by an accrediting agency recognized by the United States Department of Education or foreign equivalent.
For details on NPC’s transfer credit policy, including those that apply to each program, please see the NPC school catalog. If a student wishes to transfer from NPC to another institution, the extent to which such institution will accept NPC credits is determined by the receiving institution.
Prestigious Faculty
The faculty is comprised of dynamic professionals who bring real-world experience directly to you.
The
NPC team of professionals
includes attorneys and business managers and administrators who have worked in a variety of firms and businesses in the United States and abroad, computer professionals and support personnel who have intimate knowledge of the day-to-day problems that challenge a busy office.
Student Mentor Program
National Paralegal College employs a staff of student mentors to help guide new students through the study and work process. Newly enrolled students are assigned a personal mentor who will help them get acclimated to the school and give them specific study suggestions, and can also review and give feedback on early assignment submissions before they are submitted for grading. All NPC student mentors are graduates of NPC, so they know the "ropes" and what it feels like to be a new student. This is in addition to the availability of all faculty members for advice, encouragement and feedback. At NPC, you are
never alone
in your education.
A student who requires reasonable academic accommodations based on disability should complete and submit the
disability accommodation request form
along with supporting documentation. Each request will be evaluated individually. Please note that accommodations cannot be made if they would fundamentally alter the nature of the student's academic program. Please send the completed form and documentation only to NPC's Director of Compliance,
Amy Dubitsky,
Dean
Stephen Haas,
or an NPC official to whom you have been referred for disability accommodation.
Live, Interactive Classrooms
National Paralegal College is a pioneer of interactive online distance paralegal education, and has fully interactive lectures given by experienced attorneys.
-
The interactive lecture brings the standard classroom experience into the privacy, comfort, and convenience of a student's home.
-
Instructors are able draw illustrations, highlight, and mark up exhibits for all students to see, as the lecture takes place on the electronic whiteboard.
- Lectures include analysis and discussion of legal concepts and how they apply to current legal and social issues.
All lectures are fully recorded in audio/video format. Students can view the lectures at any time at their own convenience. Attendance during lectures is
not
mandatory. The only advantage to attending the lectures live as opposed to watching the recordings is the ability to ask the instructor questions during the lecture. The choice is yours!
Additionally, comprehensive message boards are populated by faculty and staff with legal research, course assignments, industry news and trends, the job market and much more.
Legal Research Training
LexisNexis is the leading completely online legal research tool in the country.
All students at Crestpoint University receive access to the
LexisNexis Total Research System
and are trained in its use. Students complete extensive research assignments using LexisNexis during the course of their studies and become proficient users of this important legal research tool.
Library and Information Reosurces Network
National Paralegal College is proud to partner with the Library Information Resources Network (LIRN) to allow our students access to academic, scholarly and popular research sources, including books, journals, magazines, newspapers and periodicals. This research library gives our students access to scores of databases and tens of thousands of documents not available on the open Web or through LexisNexis.
Courseware
For many of the legal courses, National Paralegal College has written its own custom courseware material, which:
- Is straightforward and easy to understand, making learning easy, efficient and interesting.
- Heavily emphasizes the "learning by example" method, which greatly facilitates learning.
- Includes thousands of self testing questions with detailed explanations.
- Includes full text of thousands of integrated statutes and cases that are relevant to the materials being covered.
- Includes legal documents along with multimedia explanations and instructions which teach the student the practical skills needed to work in the legal profession.
- Presents all course materials in screen, printout and audio modes so students can study in the manner that is most effective for them.
NPC faculty review each course before it is given and revise it to ensure that it reflects the latest changes to the law and industry trends.
Voice Proctor
NPC uses the
Voice Proctor
system for exam security. Voice Proctor uses voice biometrics to ensure that the person taking the exam is the student who has registered for the course. This system protects NPC's academic integrity while allowing students to take exams at the time and location of their convenience, without being in front of a camera.
CALI
NPC is proud to be an institutional subscriber to the Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction ("CALI") online legal lesson database. Our students have access to the full array of hundreds of lessons across many areas of law. Enrolled NPC students should
contact Stephen Haas
for information on accessing this lesson database.
National Recognition
NPC is:
NPC is committed to equal opportunity in its education and admission policies. It is our desire to provide equal opportunity to all. NPC does not discriminate or differentiate based on race, color, creed, age, gender, national origin, religion, sexual orientation or disability. Amy Dubitsky is designated under 34 C.F.R. 104.7(a).
The United States Department of Education’s Title IX regulations require institutions that receive federal financial aid under Title IV must not discriminate on the basis of sex in the education programs or activities it operates. NPC aligns our policies with the principles on which these regulations are based. Questions or complaints regarding Title IX issues should be directed to NPC's Title IX coordinator, Ayala Wohlgelernter. Ayala can be reached via:
Title IX training materials for NPC staff can be found
here.