I live in Ohio and I was able to take college classes without paying tuition (through a program that is now called College Credit Plus). In addition to most state schools, several private colleges participate in the program. My high school had only a few AP classes and I wanted to take classes not available through AP.
In my case, I took college classes full-time and I was able to stay with relatives who lived closer. The school would also have let me live in a dorm room, but I would have had to pay for it.
In a few cases, advanced students are lucky that the high school and community college are adjacent to each other. So students who exhaust the advanced offerings at the high school can conveniently take courses at the community college.
Dual enrollment is a great deal in our school district. Our district has a grant that covers most of the cost. We paid less than $200 for each 3 credit class. Unlike AP courses, which take the whole year at our high school, my kids were able to get a course done in a semester.
@2muchquan here, Running Start is for juniors and seniors only, so many of them DO drive, but we also have excellent public transportation, and nearly a dozen community colleges within about a 30-mile radius, so there are many options for students in the Seattle area. Also, as mentioned above, some classes are online, some are 'hybrid" beign both online and a set number of on-campus visits, others on-site but at night when a parent might drive a non-licensed student.
My niece teaches one of those college classes in the high school in the state where she lives. She did have to get certified by the college to be able to do it. There aren’t many options where she lives, so it’s a good choice for kids in her HS.
State department of Ed doesn’t allow high schools to offer both AP and DE for the same class, so calc is DE, chem is AP, etc. All are offered free of charge to the student. Neither is a super-terrific deal for a student who doesn’t know exactly where he or she wants to go and do. For instance, my oldest took calc. She needed stats for her major. My youngest had 16 hours worth of credit for physics and chemistry (one was DE, one was AP). She needed 4 hours of science for gen Ed. Sure 12 are “electives” but maybe she would have enjoyed 12 hrs of electives in communications or something. Oh, and neither graduated/will graduate early.
Most high school students are not in a position to “optimize” their choice of advanced (AP or college) courses with the intent of getting the best subject credit and placement for when they go to college, because (a) they may not know what college and major they will be doing, and (b) high school for college-bound students is mainly general education, so advanced high school students may choose advanced courses thinking along those lines.
@2muchquan The university is less than 10 minutes from the high school, but safe to say this skews towards the affluent (upfront costs + students with cars). It’s two courses per semester, beginning at 7:30am, MW and TuTh, so they arrive at the high school by about 9am.
Another issue can be scheduling. High schools tend to have classes every day. College classes often only meet 2-3 times a week. If high school isn’t matched for that, scheduling can make it very difficult to take both high school and college classes at same time.
Minnesota Dual Enrollment is free to HS students, even books are paid for by HS. True whether taught at the HS or (in my case) across the street at the 4-year college. State institutions in Minnesota (e.g. U of Minn) have to accept these concurrent enrollment credits, by state law.
I second the caution that academically selective universities MAY be more likely to accept AP credits than DE credits. It depends on both the university and the DE school. I have seen it go badly with kids from my school - but to be fair, our DE partner is a community college.
Our schools offer DE and AP with overlap in some but not all subjects. US Government can be taken either route for instance. All state schools in Texas accept the credits though they are potentially just electives and not used to fulfill major requirements- not so much in the case of government but in the case of British Literature for instance.
AP is weighted more beneficially than DE in our GPA calculation which I suspect is due to USNWR and Newsweek rankings. Due to that, AP is more popular because if you want to go to UT and A&M you have to care about rank. For most outside the top 10 percent and a fair number in it, most prefer the DE route since the college credit is not riding on one test grade alone.
Our DE is at CC rates so $165 for a 3 hour class. Financial aid is available through the CC.
Its a natural result of high cost of college. From what I have seen, many colleges will allow more transfer credit to be used than AP credits. Can allow someone to graduate college in less time, get a double major/minor, have a co-op and still graduate in 4 years or graduate with BS/MS at same time. Its a more practical approach to college in many instances. “College experience” folks may not like it though.
^^For some students, there can be a certain amount of duplication with gen-ed and the first two years of college.
Our thinking was to knock out some gen-eds so our son could move into the stuff he is very interested in, at a faster pace.
My husband dropped out of college to start a business (which turned out fine for him) and I was trying to avoid that with our son, who is very much like him.
DE is not always the answer though. There are traps for the unwary, and some kids just do better with the traditional high school experience.
Here only juniors and seniors can take DE, there are GPA requirements and sometimes minimum SAT scores to be exempt from placement testing.
Most students take DE as seniors since classes count towards graduation requirements. Scheduling can be tricky but if they only take one or two classes and have a lighter HS schedule in return, it’s feasible.
Some students who planned on attending the college where they were taking DE classes, took several at a discount cost because they knew they were going to be accepted credits.
There are several colleges to choose from but only one is close. Online courses can be taken, but my D’s university doesn’t accept online course credit.
Yes I would caution to take gen eds primarily for DE because science and math classes for a major might have to be taken at the university students plans to graduate with a degree from.
our DE at the community college is 1/2 price, so there is a decent cost. we do have a small offshoot campus actually in walking distance from our HS, but for some unknown reason, the scheduling doesnt jive with the HS schedule…i guess its designed for kids to leave early, but mine has a full courseload and we couldnt figure out what to sacrifice. none of the DE courses are actually taught at the HS either.
the main campus is roughly 30 miles away. it took me an hour to get there in traffic yesterday. it would be a significant commitment for ME-mine isnt yet driving and there is no such thing as public transportation here. its really not an option to drop her off and come back, so i’d need to figure out how to waste 3 hours or so…again, not really an option–one can only spend so much time at the mall. you also cannot do the online option as an entering freshman (i dont know why). and i’m pretty sure you cant do summer sessions under the DE program either–which pretty much stinks too.
and while its a nice option to take some Gen Eds, you cannot take a math or an english. i have no idea why-those would have been our target courses. they very much push psy or western civ as the first course(s)…mine has interest in neither and will meet those needs in other ways with more appropriate to her major courses.
so cost isnt everything. value factors in immensely. to just do it to say you did really makes little sense in our case.
but everyones experience is different so you have to evaluate your own situation to decide if its worth it.
Dual enrollment classes in Calc 3 offered in conjunction with our nearby state flagship have been accepted for credit at many colleges that don’t provide much in the way of AP credit.
Another thing I have seen students regret- taking all DE classes senior year, and essentially missing the experiences of that year- because they lose daily connection with the school. (Esp if DE schedule means they cannot participate in as many EC at their HS) It’s not like you can go back and do senior year later (I don’t think senior year in college is the same sort of experience)
Should this prevent a kid from taking DE? Of course not if it’s the right setting for them. But it’s something to think about.