Education in South Carolina

Early education in South Carolina was centered in the home, reflecting the English roots of colonial society.

Numerous military academies provided a high-school level education, with The Citadel in Columbia offering a college degree.

During the Reconstruction era, the Freedmen's Bureau, northern philanthropic and missionary associations, and African American activists established private schools for black youth.

[4] South Carolina maintained a racially segregated elementary, secondary, and post-secondary system of education after Reconstruction.

The Great Depression temporarily stalled progress, but the World War II brought U.S. Navy training programs to campus.

In 2017 in the budget proposal, Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman requested the state lease to purchase 1,000 buses to replace the most decrepit vehicles.

[17] On January 5, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded South Carolina more than $1.1 million to replace 57 school buses with new cleaner models through its Diesel Emissions Reduction Act program.

[18] South Carolina has diverse institutions from large state-funded research universities to small colleges that cultivate a liberal arts, religious or military tradition.