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A private college based in West Virginia is opening up a branch in Mooresville. Mountain State University began opening branches and offering online courses ten years ago. The Mooresville campus will be the school's seventh location. Charles Polk, the university's president, says the school set its eyes on expanding into North Carolina three years ago. "We see this as a major part of our future. West Virginia is not a growing state. North Carolina is a bellwether and it's going to be a very good place to be over time," says Polk. Mountain State University will offer a bachelor's degree in Organizational Leadership and a master's degree in Strategic Leadership on its Mooresville campus. Polk says most of their students are people holding down jobs who want to get management experience. The university opened a campus in Hickory last year. Twenty years ago Mountain State University was on the brink of bankruptcy and now it's grown through online courses and opening up small branches in the Southeast. That expansion also led to some trouble. Four years ago, a Denver recruiter contracted by the university to enroll foreign students in online courses was sentenced to four years in prison. He pleaded guilty to a scheme that involved selling the students school credits for courses they didn't complete so they could obtain fraudulent visas.