The University of the Sunshine Coast will welcome its first students in the heart of Melbourne, Victoria, at the start of the March 2016 semester.

Twenty years after USC opened its thriving campus at Sippy Downs, it is partnering with nationally-recognised higher education provider, the Australian Technical and Management College (ATMC), to offer degrees to international students in another state.

Executives from USC and the ATMC will travel to New Delhi, India, on 1 February to launch the partnership at the Australian High Commission.

USC Vice-Chancellor Professor Greg Hill said the partnership, which will enable international students to enrol in USC programs at a new ATMC facility in Melbourne, was partly in response to student demand from India and Nepal.

“Students in these countries value degrees from Australian universities and are very interested in studying in our metropolitan areas,” he said.

“USC Melbourne will kick off with eight degrees, both undergraduate and postgraduate, in areas such as Business, Accounting and Information and Communications Technology.

“This exciting expansion follows the growing success of our USC SouthBank campus in Brisbane. It will help USC achieve the goals of our Strategic Plan.”

USC is the ATMC’s third Australian university partner, along with Federation University Australia and Charles Darwin University.

ATMC Chief Executive Officer Dr Manish Malhotra said he was delighted with the commencement of the partnership.

“USC is an outstanding, progressive Australian public university with a commitment to graduate outcomes and excellence in teaching, which will make it a perfect partner in attracting international higher education students to Victoria,” he said.

The ATMC has more than 2,400 international students enrolled across seven campuses in Melbourne, Geelong and Sydney. There are also offshore campuses in Sri Lanka and Malaysia.

To accommodate the growth from the USC partnership, the ATMC has entered into a new lease arrangement for six floors at 399 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne.

Professor Hill said ATMC staff would deliver USC’s programs using the personalised, face-to-face teaching methods that had helped rank USC in the top 20 percent of Australian universities for teaching quality every year for the past 10 years (‘The Good Universities Guide’).

“USC Melbourne will enable more students to achieve our internationally-recognised qualifications and improve their professional prospects,” he said.

The degrees on offer at USC Melbourne in 2016 are:

Bachelor of Business, Bachelor of Business (Tourism, Leisure and Event Management), Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting), Bachelor of Information and Communications Technology, two Masters of Business Administration (MBAs), MBA/Master of International Business and Master of Professional Accounting.

— Julie Schomberg