You may wish it to be that way, but that’s not the way colleges look at it. Colleges make the rules, WE DON’T.
When a student takes college-level classes while in HS, but none after, he is an incoming frosh and his credits will count if the school accepts them (which many colleges do).
Both of my children (and millions of others) were accepted as incoming freshman with upper-classmen standing because of all of their credits earned while still in HS.
This is pretty much what every college does.