<p>DS is Junior this year. He has one AP class, and they have had a few discussions about Dual Enrollment. </p>
<p>How exactly do these programs work? They are telling him he will save a lot of money by doing these. I am not seeing the savings. </p>
<p>For examplte: The one state school near us has a semester tuition of $6800. That is the cost whether you take 12 or 18 credits.<br>
So wouldn't Dual Enrollment, at a cost of $300/credit, just be an "additional" expense on top of the tuition? That wouldn't be saving money. </p>
<p>The AP would lighten the course load, but again wouldn't reduce tuition. </p>
<p>Completion of college credit while in high school, if your college accepts the credit, can be a buffer against late graduation, which is often more of a concern than attempting to graduate early. A ninth semester is often more expensive due to scholarships and financial aid being reduced after eight semesters.</p>
<p>Early graduation is typically less feasable, since college credit earned while in high school is typically not that well focused on one’s requirements for one’s major or other requirements, and may not be exactly equivalent to courses at one’s college if one attends a different college. Also, many students do not see it as being particularly desirable or necessary to graduate early, unless the financial constraints make it so.</p>
<p>Ok, so the push for saving money on tuition isn’t really true then, in a standard 8 semester degree?</p>
<p>FYI mathy, the OP clearly states what the school is telling him, and it didn’t make sense to me. </p>
<p>This is a message board, isn’t it used for posting questions? or did I get that wrong? Let me know, I won’t bother posting here again next time I have a question that is college related. </p>
<p>The OP says “How exactly do these programs work??”</p>
<p>In our school, dual enrollment means that you take special classes from regular high school teachers who have been certified by our local cc to teach a class full of high school student on the campus of the high school. Families pay only for the text. If we lived, say, in Minnesota, then dual enrollment would mean that your child could commute to a college campus and enroll in college courses alongside college students and the state would pick up the tab for all of it, I believe including books. In other communities, I believe that kids can attend community college classes, on their own dime, and they can get high school credit for it. In our community, the high school will attempt to aid scheduling such that kids can attend college classes on a college campus, on their own dime, but they won’t get any high school credit for it. </p>
<p>I stand by my original comment that if you want to know exactly how a dual enrollment program works, you need to talk to your own school. Did they say anything about who is paying the tuition you mentioned? Did your son ask about how this saves money? </p>
<p>It would depend on the college. Not all colleges have the same tuition regardless of how many credits you take. So If you went to a college that you paid per credit hour then yes 1 AP class would help save money in the long run. If you scored high enough on the AP test and you got credit for a class you would have had to take to graduate.</p>
<p>In the long run though 1 AP class really isn’t going to make much difference but when you start talking about kids who take 6 or more AP classes then the cost savings start to add up.</p>
<p>My experience has been that the school district has oversold the money-saving aspect of dual enrollment. For instance, our high school offers a dual enrollment Physics course, the basic one that most pre-med kids would take. It’s really all that’s left for d’14 if she wants a senior year science that isn’t biological (and she hates bio). She’ll take it. She’ll earn 8 credits. And, if she were going to major in a social science or English, it would probably fulfill the science distribution requirement. That might save money if she were at a school that charged per credit hour or had enough gen eds done to finish a semester early. BUT . . . .</p>
<p>d’14 was thinking she’d like to major in something that would require a different physics class. So, she still ends up taking physics and the class saved nothing. My oldest took DE calculus. Then, her major required a different math, so no savings there in time or money. </p>
<p>If the classes are free to you, go ahead and take them. If your student knows for sure where he or she is going to school and that the courses transfer as something useful, take them even if you have to pay. But don’t take them thinking they will save a bundle of money. They probably won’t.</p>
<p>When my child did dual enrollment a few years ago, the school district paid for the community college classes so we only had to pay for books. Students were allowed to take up to 12 credits. A professor from the community college came to the high school and taught the class - so for us it gave 12 credits tuition free. Our district has done this for about 6 years and as far as I know the credits have always transferred to the student’s 4 year schools. </p>
<p>It all depends. My daughter is in a duel enrollment program that is free to us (except for books.) How much money that saves in the future depends on where she goes. If she were to attend an in-state public school she’ll be going in with 34 accepted general ed units (and she’s been smart and well-counselled with her choices.) At her top public choice, she has all but 2 of her lower division general ed’s done. That can help her graduate a year early and thus, save money. Some of the private schools she applied to will give no credit and so she’s saved no money but other private schools will take some of them and again, could save her a semester (which is like 30 grand so not too shabby.) </p>
<p>Other benefits can be getting certain classes done with. If my daughter goes to one of our public schools, she’s done with math, science and languages. Even if she didn’t get to graduate early, she’d just love spending that time on more humanities classes.</p>
<p>Our daughter didn’t do duel enrollment because of money… she did it because it was the best academic fit. We know other kids who’ve done it absolutely to save money and they do. Then again, the duel enrollment is free and so we’re talking apples and oranges really.</p>
<p>Many college give no placement for AP any more. And be careful not to take certain pre-professional courses before college matriculation, med school for instance requires records for all college courses ever taken, and colleges will not allow duplicates, and community college pre-med classes are looked down on. It can get tricky. </p>
<p>Oh, one more thing: Finishing “early” means a student has to know, walking onto campus for the first time, what he or she wants. Being done with gen eds means the student better have a major picked out and should be unlikely to change it if finishing early to save money is the goal. Realistically, about 2/3 of entering freshmen change their minds about their major. Sure, a student with a lot of DE credits may be able to change several times and still finish in 4. I guess that’s savings compared with 5 years of school.</p>
<p>Now, I’m not anti-DE. I think it can be great for a lot of kids. I just think school districts tend to oversell the advantages. </p>
<p>My older son had 14 AP tests (mostly 5s) and 4 college classes (from our flagship state university) to take with him to Cornell. He got credit or placement for nearly all of it. It was definitely a money saver and also showed his ability level. It also allowed him to take courses of his choosing. He knew what his major was going to be and had a good idea about his second major. In one case, he chose to take a class in which he could have taken credit. They went into greater depth and he really enjoyed it. </p>
<p>His younger brother will have fewer AP classes (8 or 9) but far more college classes from both our large state university (4) and our local community college (5 or more). All of the college classes have been out of pocket for us, but the CC classes are quite reasonable with a special deal for the first one taken each semester (only $175). </p>
<p>Neither boy was homeschooled (younger one is spending a single semester homeschooled), but they found time for dual enrollment either during the summers or after/in place of some high school classes. </p>
<p>Another benefit can be that if you have credits, you get to register before others in your same class. My nephew had 40 credits through AP, so even if he doesn’t use them to advance to the next level, he gets to register as a sophomore and thus may get a better schedule than the freshman who registers last.</p>
<p>Regarding registration priority, some schools distinguish between class standing based on credits completed (including any brought in from AP tests or college courses taken while in high school) and class level, based on semesters of attendance since entry (e.g. 4-5 semesters completed since frosh entry or 0-1 semesters completed since junior transfer entry = junior class level, regardless of number of credits).</p>
<p>I did dual enrollment at my Florida public high school in association with the local community college…I finished high school 2008. Most of the dual enrollment college courses I took were right on my high school campus, so I was able to participate in all regular high school activities and take regular high school courses too. I earned almost 50 semester credit hours from dual enrollment that I took to my Florida university after high school. The dual enrollment courses, including textbooks, were free to me! I ended up doing a full four years at my Florida state university after high school, the earned dual enrollment credits allowed me to complete two bachelor’s degrees…I ended up with almost 200 semester credit hours when I finished my undergraduate degrees. The dual enrollment is a good deal and allows more flexibility in regular college after high school. </p>
<p>I really was mainly interested in the financial savings of doing Dual Enrollment.</p>
<p>Due to financial constraints, DS will most likely be commuting to local state school. They charge tuition by semester as do several other colleges/universities in the area. So, again, 12 -18 credits, same cost.</p>
<p>The DE courses are $300 a credit, so $900 for one class, out of pocket for us. I don’t see the savings unless he was somehow able to completely eliminate one entire semester. I can’t see this happening at this point in time,as there are only a few classes available.</p>
<p>There are a few parents who have started their kids on DE thinking they will save all this money, without realizing that many of the colleges in the area don’t charge by credit hour. </p>
<p>I will look into a little further, but don’t see the value at this time. Of course, if he ended up w/ part time status, then it drops to paying by credit hour. What impact would that have on financial aid? </p>
<p>My oldest D only took two classes DE, but combined with AP credits she had enough units to allow her to graduate a semester early from college if she chooses (she is choosing not to as she has a full tuition scholarship and is using the extra semester to take classes to prepare for grad school). She took the classes in the summer to allow her to take more electives during the school year at the high school so the college credit was a bonus for her. </p>
<p>However, taking 18 credits may be too much workload for some students if the courses are high workload courses (courses with labs, art studio, music performance, computer programming assignments, large term projects) or if the student has a substantial amount of part time work during the semester, so entering with credit may allow the student to take lighter course loads during the regular semesters.</p>
<p>But given the cost of the dual enrollment courses, he may want to be picky about taking only those which actually are useful at fulfilling requirements for his possible majors, or general education requirements at the intended college, rather than those which will end up as non-specific elective credit.</p>
<p>Financial aid is affected when a student drops below full time. Some kinds of aid, like the Pell grant, can be prorated. Some simply insult available to part-timers. Depends on the school.</p>