Medical Assistant Program at Western Piedmont Community College

✔️ Page Updated: December 26th, 2025 | Current for 2026, learn more about our data 🛈

For students in Morganton, Western Piedmont Community College’s highly-rated 4.6 program offers established, CAAHEP-accredited training with a perfect 100% graduate placement rate.

This page provides up-to-date program costs, graduation and employment data, accreditation details, contact information, and interactive resources – including a Google map, student reviews, and official WPCC video – to help you quickly evaluate if this is the right medical assisting school for you.

CMA AAMA: Medical Assistant Program Overview at WPCC

Western Piedmont Community College (WPCC), located in Morganton, offers one of the nation’s most respected Medical Assisting programs. It holds a significant history, dating back to 1969 as North Carolina’s first accredited program.

Program Options and Pathways

Students can choose between two career-focused pathways:

• The Medical Assisting Diploma: A focused 47-credit-hour option.
• The Associate in Applied Science (AAS) degree: A comprehensive 68-credit-hour program.

The curriculum prepares students to be multi-skilled professionals, covering both administrative and clinical tasks essential to the healthcare team.

Hands-On Training and Curriculum

The core coursework emphasizes crucial administrative skills – including scheduling, coding, and processing insurance accounts. This is often practiced hands-on in the specialized Clay’s Office & Clinical Classroom. Clinical training includes examinations, routine lab procedures, and medication administration.

Accreditation and Graduate Success

WPCC’s program is accredited by CAAHEP and boasts exceptional outcomes, ensuring high standards for graduates. The 2024 graduate cohort achieved a 100% job placement rate and a 100% pass rate on their certification exams, consistently outscoring the national average.

Graduates earn the professional credential of Certified Medical Assistant (CMA/AAMA) and find stable employment in various settings like physicians’ offices, urgent care centers, and laboratories. For detailed information on admission or costs, contact Program Director Vicki Shuping at the Jim Burnett Hall location in Morganton.

WPCC’s Medical Assistant Program Data

Our Data

Our Medical Assistant Program Data is carefully researched and curated from the following government and higher education organizations.

• CAAHEP (Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs) – CAAHEP is the largest programmatic accreditor for health sciences education and the official medical assisting program accreditor for the National CMA (AAMA) Certification Exam.
• IPEDS (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System) – A comprehensive database of U.S. colleges and universities.
• Peterson’s Database – Includes detailed college information and their Distance Learning Licensed Data Set.
• College Scorecard – A U.S. Department of Education tool offering key statistics on college costs, graduation rates, and student outcomes.
• NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) – The primary federal source for data and analysis on education in the U.S. such as cost of tuition. Our data shows average cost of tuition and fees for Public 2 year institutions per state.
• BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) – May 2024 Occupational Outlook Handbook Medical Assistants Data for Salary and Employment. Our data shows the mean annual salary and the total number of employed MAs per state.

• View All Medical Assistant Programs
• View Online Medical Assisting Programs
• View Medical Assistant Schools in North Carolina