I just read and commented on a Facebook thread in which quite a number of parents were upset that they were having to pay to have their children’s dual enrollment credits transferred. One parent, whose son had taken two classes and was forced to pay $660, said “Thank goodness he only took two classes!” One parent complained about having to pay approximately $3,300 for about 30 credit hours.
By way of further explanation, the high school in question is encouraging students to take classes at a nearby junior college. If the students choose to attend that junior college following graduation then the credits are completely free. If they want to go elsewhere they have to pay roughly $110 per credit hour to have the credits entered and then transferred.
I pointed out that with the cost of attendance at most four-year universities coming in at more than $25,000, getting a year’s worth of credits for $3,300 is a great deal. And if you add the value of a kid being able to graduate and get a job a year earlier the value of those credits climbs to $65-75,000 or more.
AP is cheaper and a better deal than dual enrollment, but I just find it strange that these parents don’t seem to have any idea how expensive maintaining a kid at college for a year is. Is this common?
Well, that does seems like a bit of a money making scam for the junior college. Why should it cost anything to release your transcript and credits to a transfer school other than the administrative cost of getting the transcript? My kid is dual enrolling at a junior college and they don’t have anything like that. I think it’s like in the range of 5-10 dollars to send your records to another institution and then that other institution evaluate the credits as they will. So I do think that is unusual and I’m not surprised people are complaining about it. Are the classes otherwise free or are they paying tuition for the classes as well?
AP really might not be cheaper if your kid goes to a private school. And dual enrollment for qualified high schoolers is free in my state. And by free I mean 100% free including books. So even for PS kids, DE is cheaper because you don’t have to schedule and pay for an AP test. I know different colleges might look at AP vs. DE differently but it’s working great for my kid.
I think who pays depends on state law. Here in Ohio the school district has to pick up dual enrollment costs. According to an Edweek blog: "The way it works in Ohio, according to the Dispatch, is that the state department of education foots the college bill and deducts that amount from districts’ per-pupil state funding. "
Perhaps in the OP’s state the full costs aren’t borne unless the student wants credit.
Our CT school district…if dual enrollment courses are being used to satisfy high school graduation requirements, the school pays the costs. When our kid applied to colleges as a freshman, all we had to do was request and pay for a community college transcript to be sent. We only did this for the school she matriculated at somthat she could,get college credits. The other schools saw these courses listed on her HS transcript.
No per credit costs to get that transcript sent. That sounds weird to me!
As I recall, back in the day it cost a nominal fee to process a transcript request to my college.
I paid a few dollars to get a copy of my college grades, have them sent to a grad school, or something like that.Well, maybe the transaction costs have gone up since then. To $25 or so?
Why should it cost much more than that to transfer credits?
Our high school has a handful of course accredited by Syracuse University (which we are nowhere near.) My recollection is there was a similar charge to get a college transcript from them, but none if the courses just appear on a high school transcript. Both my kids went to private colleges where AP credits were allowed (one limited it to 5 APs), but not necessarily dual enrollment courses. Even my kid who had all his APs accepted said that course sequences in his major and minor made it impossible to graduate early. (But I don’t think he tried very hard either.)
I don’t think of college as just a return on my investment. I think what they learned by spending four full years as undergraduates was a valuable experience in and of itself. I realize I am lucky to be able to look at it that way.
Whether or not the college/university applied to accepts dual credit courses for transfer, the student is obligated to provide an academic transcript from that place. And for the rest of their life will have to order up a transcript whenever they apply to a grad program or for a job that requires all transcripts.
The parents in this particular school district need to work with the district and the community college in question and work toward a better tuition policy. Perhaps the tuition should be paid up front, and then waived later if the students stay at the CC. Perhaps there could be tuition scholarships for students whose families can’t afford the tuition (which is likely to be the reason for the classes currently being free up-front but paid for later).
We pay $75/credit hour for dual credit classes at the local directional U when we start the class. I thought that was normal. Do most students get these for free?
We have to pay up front prior to the dual enrollment class to begin and $110/credit is right in range with what we had to pay. Our schools do pay for the text books.
@MusakParent and Ohio Parents - I’m jealous of your cost!
just went to an AP/DE meeting at our HS. lots of parents asking questions! at our school, there is a fee to take a DE class ($250/class); and 3 nearby colleges sponsor them; 1 being the local community college. All classes are taken at HS by qualified teachers. Students can chose to take them DE and/or AP. DE= guaranteed credit; AP, not guaranteed.
Some classes, like AP world history are considered 2 classes, so that’s a $500 fee for the year. If a kid doesnt take the DE credit, the kid then takes the AP test which is $95. There are some scholarships for free/reduced lunch kids. There’s also a small fee to transfer credits from the colleges to the 4-yr U where kids end up. So OP, we are very similar to you, families have spent $3-6K. But they are getting lots of credit for cheap; not sure why there’s complaining!
In California, DE classes and CC classes while taken in HS are essentially free. If I had known that my kid would 100% end up at a state school, I would have had him take a lot more classes.
We paid $140 for a dual enrollment class DD took this past summer, but that was billed by the high school as a “summer school fee”. If whatever class you were taking (DE or not) was not a remedial class, you paid that fee. She is taking a dual enrollment class this school year that will count for two college courses (6 credits), and it is not costing us a dime. There is no textbook - the teacher has handouts and lab instructions posted online.
In our district, AP classes are free and each AP test costs around $100. We pay dual enrollment costs to the community college at about $80 per credit. It adds up. A year old dual enrollment English can be $500 or more. There is some financial aid available for low income students. But I have once kid with a bachelors and a masters in four years and another will graduate a year early, saving us much more than the dual enrollment fees. I’m still jealous of those of you who get this stuff for free.
Some private colleges may not accept transfer credit for college courses taken while in high school, or have additional conditions (e.g. not used for high school graduation requirements, must be taken on a college campus, etc.) for accepting them.
In addition, some colleges may be stingy at granting subject credit for transferred college courses, even in common lower level courses.
@MusakParent Dual enrollment is not at all free in Mississippi. Ole Miss provids a 50-percent scholarship to high school students, but the cost came to $300 per credit hour for my kids. The junior college I mentioned has told students on the front end that the tuition waiver will come if they enroll in their college. If they don’t, they have to pay, although the $100 per credit hours is extremely cheap. It would certainly be nice if the state paid for dual enrollment costs, but given that I’ve shelled out about $15,000 over the past few years for my kids I would certainly hate to see them start to give it away for free now.
My guess is that at most one student from this high school, and probably not that, will attend an “elite” college that won’t accept unlimited dual enrollment or AP credits. There might be a problem for students who want to go out of state and find their junior college credits won’t transfer. And many “elite” schools will accept 15 hours of AP plus 15 hours of dual enrollment, thus shaving a year off of the time in school.
Mississippi is grading schools based on what percentage of the students successfully complete “advanced” classes. Junior colleges get extra funds for every degree they award. So there are incentives for all concerned to put this system in place.
My surprise was that parents were squawking about having to pay just over $3,000 for a year’s worth of college credit. That’s a deal that is hard to beat.
My daughter did two years of full time dual enrollment at a community college. All of her classes were free to us and book rentals were also free. The public school system didn’t pay anything for the classes - I don’t really know the details but it was all from a different source of state funding. In terms of the high school dd was still 100% classified as a high school student and it didn’t affect funding to the high school.
DD pays the cc to mail a transcript to any school/program that requires a transcript. It cost about $4.00. The high school was able to have dd get one signed/sealed copy to put on naviance but she had to mail one directly to the college she choose both at the end of senior year first semester and the end of her senior year. Other than that I paid about $30 to buy a lab book that dd could write in.
In terms of acceptance dd picked her school without knowing what colleges would accept what. She is going to a private college. She did not get an associates but has the same amount of credits an associates would require. After we paid for her to go there was the first time they officially look at and evaluated her dual enrollment classes. We were very surprised that they gave her credit for every single class she took. A few of them are free electives though which honestly don’t do anything to help/hurt if your goal is to graduate earlier. She is officially entering as a junior but in reality is a freshman with advance credit standing. She will need to repeat English if she wants an honors diploma but they won’t accept AP English for that either. We anticipate that in reality she will take 3 years to graduate since she may want to do a double major, study abroad, start grad courses etc. My pocketbook says it will be nice to to save a semester or two of tuition but our attitude is we will see where it leads and appreciate the options.
Problem is that it’s not consistent from program to program or state to state.
My eldest did dual enrollment, she took 16 classes which were all tuition free (for up to 13 units a semester) AND there was no cost to transfer those units to her private university (though hers only allowed 1 years worth of dual enrollment OR AP to transfer.) The in-state public’s would have taken them all at no cost. My middle took 4 courses at a local private university. We paid 25 dollars a class and again, didn’t cost us anything to transfer them to his private university of choice. They took all 4.
I do worry about timeliness as her transcripts go out because it is a junior college and UT she takes classes at.