COLUMBIA, S.C. — The City of Columbia is launching a new initiative, the "Mayor's student council," to hear from college students in the city.
With more than 60,000 students in Columbia, mayor Daniel Rickenmann says the idea is to find out how the city can retain graduates in the city and invest their skills back into the community to help pave the City of Columbia's future.
The Mayor says this council will help craft strategies and policies at the city-level that will help keep students in Columbia after they graduate, to start businesses, raise families and invest back into the community.
"What else is out there that we could be doing to not only keep the talent but attract new talent to come with them," Rickenmann said. "You take the 60,000 students and then add the 45,000 recruits that go through Fort Jackson, and suddenly you're adding 100,000 people to our population and our mix that are spending dollars for a period of time. So, how do we make those experiences that people want to come back."
12 students have been selected from a range of schools including, Midlands Technical College, Columbia International University, the University of South Carolina and Benedict College.
The city says the students range from freshmen to graduates. The mayor says the council will meet once a month.