My daughter is a high school senior. She is in her second year of full time dual enrollment and will graduate high school with 61-63 credits (depending on what she takes next semester). She will not have an associates since has no interest in some of the required courses but rather focused on of course her high school graduation requirements, if she needed more of anything in terms of applying to 4 year schools, and then her personal interests.
From a financial perspective the idea of saving a year sounds great. However that isn’t the goal.