Teens in area school districts soon may find it easier to earn credit toward a degree or certificate from Elgin Community College even before they leave high school.
Dual enrollment, one of four ways high school students can earn college credit, is being used less by teenagers headed for ECC than by those headed for almost any other community college in Illinois. And ECC administrators think that’s because it’s less convenient.
So administrators proposed to the college’s board of trustees last week that ECC start allowing the courses to be taught by high school teachers within their buildings or to allow some high-schoolers to spend all day on the ECC campus.
Julie Schaid, associate dean of college readiness and school partnerships, noted that dual enrollment is one of four programs by which students can earn college credit while still attending high school in Elgin-area U46, Carpentersville-based District 300, Burlington District 301 and St. Charles District 303. The others are Advanced Placement, in which a student can take only specific academic courses established by the College Board and must pass an exam to get college credit; accelerated credit, in which high school faculty teach courses whose content and rigor have been worked out in cooperation with ECC professors; and dual credit, in which high-schoolers take a college course on the ECC campus and earn both high school and college credit under a specific intergovernmental agreement between the college and the school district.
Under dual enrollment, Schaid said, “qualified individual high school students take college courses on their own. High school credit may or not be awarded.”
Libby Roeger, dean of college transitions, said dual enrollment allows students and parents to save tuition money, helps students transition from high school to college by showing them what a college course is like, and can shorten the time required to earn a degree or a professional certificate.
But Schaid said only 175 ECC students per year have been using the program, accounting for 426 course enrollments last school year. And 75 percent of those are Career Technical Education students, working toward a professional degree or certificate in a field like nursing or manufacturing rather than toward a bachelor’s degree. Of high school students in the school districts that feed into ECC, she said, only 10 percent of those deemed ready for college based on the ACT exam are taking advantage of the program.
Except for Chicago’s city college system, every community college in Illinois has a bigger percentage of its future students using dual enrollment than ECC. Compared to the 426 course enrollments at ECC, for example, College of DuPage had 4,858 enrollments in 2013. Harper College had 2,345. Joliet Junior College had 13,751.
Roeger and Schaid said the probable reason is that ECC requires such students to come to the ECC campus and take their courses under ECC faculty members. Schaid said that is inconvenient and especially makes it hard for low-income students to participate.
By contrast, 99 percent of the Joliet Dual Enrollment students take the courses in their home high schools, with high school faculty doing the teaching. Harper began offering such courses in high school buildings last year. And the College of DuPage allows high schoolers to take Dual Enrollment courses all day on its college campus.
“We’ve been cautious and need to catch up” in what ECC allows, Roeger said.
Roeger said a committee of ECC teachers and administrators should be set up next month to work out the details, such as how to determine whether a high school teacher is qualified to teach a course that ECC will accept for credit.
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“The goal is to pilot one course in one of the school districts in spring 2016. In fall 2016 we would pilot a full-day-on-ECC-campus program and pilot additional courses in high schools,” Roeger said.
Though they were not asked to vote on it, board members seemed to applaud the proposal.
“If this is going to reach a significant number of students, it almost has to be offered in the high schools,” said Trustee John Duffy. “Otherwise transportation is a severe problem.”
“I love this plan,” said Board Chair Donna Redmer.