My daughter is a rising junior. Her class school pitches a dual enrollment agreement with local U, but they also offer plenty of APs, so we really didn’t see the point. My husband and I do know a few families who were dual enrolling, but I just found out 60 (!) students in her grade are dual enrolling as juniors, another 60 seniors. The program costs over $2,000 for the year and awards them 10-12 credits in standard, highly-transferable courses.
Is this some new edge in admissions or simply parents recognizing the value of earning college credits so cheaply or maybe both? I guess they also get to avoid AP exams.
It is the new normal. It’s also not expensive when you calculate the cost of dual enrollment hours vs. residential hours, with the latter having the additional cost of a dorm, food plan, sorority bill, etc. It’s a great way to save money.
It’s not expensive in WA. HS students can do “Running Start” at local community colleges for free. Many graduate with an AA before they get their HS diploma. These community colleges all have partnerships with various four-year colleges around WA. Some of the top students at D’s HS chose this path. Others stick with traditional HS. But the $2,000 cost in your case would give one pause-not all students stay in-state where the credits transfer without a problem.
Unless there is some reason to think the dual enrollment class is substantially better (eg calc based stats instead of AP stats) why not just take the AP classes? Much cheaper, much more convenient and colleges say upfront how the credits will be regarded.
It sounds like the new normal for you. Some states have the HS pay out of their budget for DE students (I think that’s true for OH). How the money moves and what discounts are offered is certainly different by state, and possibly by school district.
My son completed more than 20 hours of dual credit before he graduated. It wasn’t that expensive at his school, some of the classes were only $100/credit hour + the cost of the university level books since the high school didn’t supply those.
The thing I liked about the dual credit was his grades stayed on his transcript and I was very confident he’d do well in those courses. I’m pretty sure he started college with a 4.0 GPA and nearly 30 credits complete (since he did also complete 1 AP course).
That gave him a good cushion since he had to maintain his GPA for his scholarship as he adjusted to college life.
My S does dual enrollment, but it’s free at our local community college. We think it’s a killer deal. By the time he graduates HS, he’ll have all of his general ed. courses done for either the UC or Cal State system (guaranteed to transfer), plus he’ll have all or all but one of the classes for his EMT certification.
S started the DE courses completely on his own, out of a desire for more depth and variety than his HS could offer.
I think Dual Enrollment is something that, until recently, has not been as widespread as AP. So whether or not it’s a “new” normal depends on where you came from.
When I was in high school thirty years ago in the south, there was a well established program that was essentially DE. In our area of northern California, it isn’t available and chatting with friends who grew up here, they had never heard of anything like it.
Aside: The program when I was in high school was, at the time, officially called “Joint Enrollment”. They’ve since changed the name for some reason.
The AP exam scores were not reported on transcript, but the university she is attending granted 19 credits for four AP exams. For us that was a better deal.
Edited to add: Whether that is expensive would depend on where you live. Here in south Florida FAU charges just over $200 per credit so it would be around the same as any state resident would pay. However, many other states have higher per credit hour rates so it might be much less expensive. You have to check.
I’m in Oregon. Here, the schools only have to offer DE if they do not offer a reasonable number of AP or IB options. Our high school has a reasonable number of AP classes, so no Dual Enrollment option for us.
But since my daughter has practically exhausted all of the AP’s available, she will be taking classes at the community college. The high school is technically not involved in this, so the school district does not help pay for it. Community college is free for recent high school graduates, but she is not yet a graduate. So full price for us. It will be about $4.5K for three quarters.
I’ve always wondered how logistics work? Our local university is close, but not THAT close. The kid can’t drive until junior year. Are these frequently done online? I’ll need to get educated for D20.
At our school there were 2 different types of dual enrollment courses. One was courses that the high school teachers had been trained and approved by the university to teach the course and used the materials they approved. Those courses were $100/credit hour.
The other courses were taught in an auditorium style room at the high school where they had 2 way video conferencing equipment installed. The students attended the actual college course with other college students remotely. Since the college course was only taught 2 or 3 days a week, the students would get a ‘study hall’ during their high school schedule on the off days. If I remember, we paid $150/credit hour for those.
I’ve read others on here say that their students did have to attend the classes on site.
It really just seems to depend on your specific school district and the university they work with.
Our son’s DE classes were ‘free’. BTW he went to FAU mentioned above, as well a community college nearby. The school district has articulation agreements with both schools. The school district pays for the classes.
That being said, AP can be a better option if DE is too expensive, or if you are looking at certain schools (elite privates) which sometimes give credit for AP but not necessarily DE.
DE was great for our son because he was looking at state schools which took the DE credits (or most of them).
ETA: @2muchquan - our son did his dual enrollment classes with UF online. But the classes at FAU and CC were mostly live classes, on campus. So . . .we had to drive him. That is something to consider.
Re: commuting vs online - Our local CC offers courses three different ways - traditional sit-butt-in-desk-on-campus, online and on the HS campus with a CC-approved / accredited instructor.
S has done both the traditional version and the the online version. Our area has good bus service to / from the CC, so traditional means a combo of Mom & Dad taxi service supplemented with the bus. The HS allows S to reduce his HS schedule by 1-2 periods to accommodate early afternoon DE classes if necessary.
Our school district (Michigan) offers dual enrollment at the local CC paid by the school district - students have to pay for their own books. Students cannot take any class that is offered by the school, so sometimes that is an issue.
My daughter took 2 classes at the CC each semester for her junior year (15 hours total for the year), plus 2 AP classes at school. The greatest benefit - she didn’t start high school until 3rd hour, so she didn’t go in until 9 am! The college classes were night classes. For my night owl, that extra time to sleep in made her much more enjoyable to be around! :-j
We’re hoping that her schedule works out similarly this coming year for her senior year. And as the college search really starts, we will be keeping on eye on colleges that accept those transferred credits, as well as the AP credits.
It will depend on your school district, the university they partner with and the colleges you are seeking to attend fulltime. Often times colleges limit the amount of credit they will allow for AP exams (no matter what score you got on any of them). There often are no such limits on dual enrollment college classes being used as transfer credits.
