For 10 years, Samantha Jorgensen longed to finish her associate degree. But life and its demands got in the way.

A master sergeant in the U.S. Air Force and the Tennessee Air National Guard, Jorgenson was deployed multiple times around the globe. She also had a child, a daughter, who is now 4.

Over the years, however, Jorgenson took a few community college courses and was just six credits short of completing her associate degree. But she could not find the time to go back to school.

“My husband is active duty Navy, and between his career and mine, along with deployments and raising a family, as well as completing my professional military education, I just didn’t think I could fit college in,” Jorgenson said.

Until this year.

Expecting her second child this August, Jorgenson knew she wouldn’t be deployed during her pregnancy. That’s when she decided to enroll in the Community College of the Air Force’s online partnership with Georgia Perimeter College.  GPC is one of just a few colleges in the nation selected to provide common core courses for the CCAF.

Upon enlistment into the Air Force, airmen are automatically enrolled in CCAF, said Mark Eister, director of GPC’s Military Outreach Center. As they move through their various technical schools relating to their military specialty, their training is applied toward a two-year degree.

However, the airmen still must complete a common core of courses that their military training does not cover. Georgia Perimeter provides the common core courses via GPC Online. Upon completion of the courses, the Airmen can receive their CCAF associate degree.

Jorgenson, who is an aircraft quality assurance inspector at McGhee Tyson Air National Guard base in Knoxville, Tenn., enrolled in the spring 2014 semester, with the help of GPC’s Military Outreach Center.

“Your staff and military student advocate, Chris Noerjadi, made this process very easy for me,” she said. “I had never taken anything online, but I was impressed.”

Jorgenson took a math course and an introduction to film course—both were more difficult than she anticipated, she said. But she found she liked the online format.

“The instructors were always available, and they always responded quickly. I learned a lot, and it was a lot of fun.” She received A’s in both courses.

In May, Jorgenson graduated with an associate degree in Applied Science Avionics Systems.

“I have met a goal I have been wanting to reach for a very long time. I only wish I had not waited so long.”

Jorgenson is ready to recommend the program to other airmen at her base in Knoxville. But she says she won’t wait so long for her next educational goal. “I want to go for my bachelor’s degree,” she says.