Chart: The Savings of Dual Enrollment
This time of year emails from one my Google Alerts, set to the keywords “college degree,” flood my inbox with stories from local papers around the country celebrating students who have not only graduated high school, but done so with junior college credits and even in some cases full-blown degrees under their belts. These students have participated in dual enrollment programs, wherein high schools and colleges collaborate to offer college courses to high school students which then earns them credits at both institutions.
While the articles usually celebrate the premature academic achievement and head start on college, the potential tuition savings of the arrangement don’t receive much, if any, mention. However, this can be a critical savings strategy for the students willing to step to it. Usually dually enrolled high schoolers get to earn these college credits at severely discounted or completely waived tuition rates. Kids who enroll in my local JuCo via its dual enrollment program get to take college coursework for free, and this is not uncommon.
This chart, brought to us by Charlie Boss of the Columbus Dispatch, explores the potential savings earned by recent high school graduates in Columbus, Ohio, thanks to dual enrollment’s benefits. Note the number of students per high school and divide that into the potential amount saved at both Ohio public and private colleges. It is not at all uncommon for these students to save tens of thousands of dollars for spending their high school time in a college classroom.
Certainly, in addition to the more popular A.P. credits high school students should look into local dual enrollment programs. In doing so they have the potential to not only get a head start on college and career, but also several credit hours’ worth of tuition for free. For another exploration of dual enrollment’s ins and outs stay tuned for my next Tip of the Week.