I receive a lot of questions about dual enrollment and I thought it might be helpful to write about our journey in doing this with our four teens. Years ago, when we began dual enrollment, it was a different world back then. There have been many changes and I will try to address some of them as I go.
1. Honors vs. Regular
Our oldest daughter started by applying to Kennesaw State University in the spring of 10th grade. She had already taken the ACT and had a qualifying score to get in. She took all her dual enrollment classes there. At the time, the dual enrollment program was automatically considered an Honors program as well. There were several benefits she received by being part of the Honors program. One, is that she had early registration. Also, she could select from any of the Honors classes. These classes were smaller and more discussion-based, which she loved because that’s who she is. Also, there was an Honors study room she could go to that had places to study, a mini fridge, etc. on campus and that allowed her to make some friends and have a quiet place to study while she was on campus.
2. Transferring Credits to College
When she graduated high school, she ended up committing to attend the University of Mississippi. At that point, we made sure her final high school and college transcripts were sent to the college. When she attended orientation, she was informed that all her credits had transferred (totaling 41) except for one class, Criminal Justice. All of these classes were paid for by the Georgia Student Finance Commission (GSFC) under the Georgia Dual Enrollment law. We only paid for parking and any lab fees. If we had to pay for these classes at the University of Mississippi, we would have paid approximately $1175 per credit hour, which would total $48,155.
3. Time for Harder Classes
Our second daughter had a different journey. She started her dual enrollment earlier, for two reasons: One, the Georgia law allowed for 9th and 10th graders to start earlier. Second, she was advanced in math. I was going to hire a math teacher to teach Precalculus and Calculus. When I found out the teacher we had chosen was retiring, I decided she could just dual-enroll her math classes for free. In the fall of 9th grade, she walked into the admissions office at Chattahoochee Technical College and took the Accuplacer test. She received her score and they placed her in math at the Precalculus level. So, she applied to the school, was accepted, and enrolled in the spring of her 9th-grade year. She took classes there during 9th-10th grade.
4. Career Exploration
While she was there, she took some computer programming classes. These counted for multiple purposes for us. First, they counted as two years of a foreign language on her high school transcript. Second, they gave her the opportunity to explore computer programming in high school to see if she was interested in this as a career. Which was a great idea, because she decided she did not want to do that full time! While she was exploring this as a field, I had done some research as to whether these classes would transfer. They would not. This was okay with us because we were looking at it more as career exploration rather than trying to get transfer credit.
5. More Dual Enrollment Classes Transferred
During the Spring of 10th grade, she applied to Kennesaw State University (KSU) and was accepted there for dual enrollment. So, for 11th and 12th grade, she dual enrolled at KSU. At this point, the Honors program was considered separate from dual enrollment. So, she applied to be a part of the Honors program and was accepted. Once again, this gave her the opportunity to take smaller classes, more based on discussion. However, she did not enjoy those as much as the larger classes, because of her personality.
She ended up choosing to go to the University of Georgia. She attended her orientation and was informed that everything transferred except those computer classes that we knew would not. In the end, she received 54 credits applied to her degree at UGA. 15 credits were used to fulfill multiple requirements. These classes were all paid for once again by GSFC. If we were to pay for them out of pocket at UGA, they would have cost approximately $747 per credit hour. This totals $40,338 we would have had to pay.
6. A New Dual Enrollment Law Limits Hours to 30
Finally, our third daughter chose a similar path to the second. She enrolled in Chattahoochee Technical College during 9th grade and then applied to KSU in 10th and began attending classes there in 11th. The difference with her is that they passed a law in Georgia which limited her to 30 credits total which would be funded by GSFC. This caused us to reflect and be careful about which classes she took and verify they would transfer and be useful in her future degree.
She ended up dropping one class at KSU, so her maximum amount of funded hours was 27. She completed these hours at the end of 11th grade. We decided to have her continue taking college classes during her senior year, but now we would have to pay for it. We investigated other programs that would offer her college classes during 12th grade and decided on Arizona State University’s Universal Learner Program (online). This worked well for us. She ended up taking 27 free dual enrollment credit hours with GSFC and 13 paid credit hours with Arizona State University. We ended up paying approximately $142 per credit hour for the additional credits. It was definitely much cheaper than paying full price, as you can see from the other dollar amounts above. Of the 37 credits that she transferred to UGA, all of them transferred except the first course she took, COMP 1000 at Chattahoochee Technical College. I was very careful to verify the transferability of the courses before she took them.
If you want to see the list of courses all four of our kids took and whether they transferred, you can do so here.
I hope this provides some information and ideas about why you might want to consider dual enrollment if your student is ready for it during high school. How are you planning out your high school courses? Let me know in the comments!
Blessings,
Michelle
