A high school diploma is not needed to start college work

Secondary-Postsecondary Learning Options (SPLO) programs link secondary education with both two and four-year colleges and allow secondary students to complete college-level work, often on the postsecondary campus, online, or at their regular school.

So-called “dual enrollment” courses will be credited toward the students’ high school diplomas, but sometimes also may be used to pursue a bachelor’s or associate degree or other postsecondary certificate.

At a briefing by the American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF) on Capitol Hill this month, officials from Washington state and Florida showcased their long-running SPLO programs and discussed how federal laws, including the No Child Left Behind Act, can help them improve.

“States as a whole are looking at ways to expand” the programs and numbers of students who participate, said Jennifer Brown Lerner, an AYPF program associate.

About 40 states have measures that allow dual enrollment programs to operate, and those programs rival Advanced Placement in popularity. According to AYPF, about 1.2 million students participate in dual enrollment courses, while about 1.8 million take AP classes at their schools or online, which require students to pass an exit exam to receive college credit.

The programs in Florida and Washington, are facing challenges, including funding battles and a struggle to raise minority enrollment.

Washington’s 15-year-old “Running Start” program gives 11th and 12th-graders the option of taking courses at the state’s community and technical colleges and several universities. More than 16,000 students -- about 10 percent of the state’s high school population -- currently participate.

Enrollment has grown by about 6,000 students in the past decade.

The program not only gives students classes that are more challenging and perhaps more relevant to their interests than the traditional high school curriculum, but also allows them to experience the culture of higher education, said Sally Zeiger Hanson, the assistant director of state services for the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges.

Surprisingly, most of the students who participate are not the highest achievers who are looking at Ivy League universities. Those students tend to stay in high school and take AP classes, Hanson said. Instead, the students attracted to the higher education opportunities tend to be “well-networked, B students.”

Washington officials hope the program will entice some potential dropouts to stay in school.

Florida, which has experimented with dual enrollment for three decades, requires secondary students to have a 3.0 unweighted grade point average before they are allowed to take part in dual enrollment. About 17 percent of secondary students take at least one dual enrollment class.

“We want people to understand that these are college-level courses,” said Patricia Windham, an associate vice chancellor at the Florida Department of Education. “English 101 is exactly the same whether taking it as a dual-enrollment or as a community college student.”

Eighty percent of dual-enrollment courses taken in Florida are part of the core educational requirement for an associate’s or bachelor’s degree, she said.

Both the Washington and Florida programs are state funded. In Washington, though, legislators are struggling to figure out a funding formula that will not pit secondary schools against colleges. Funding for the students comes from the K-12 budget, but the vast majority of state funds goes to the higher education institution. Currently, some secondary schools are discouraging students from participating in dual-enrollment because of the potential loss of funding, Hanson said.

Both Hanson and Windham noted that their state’s programs have low percentages of African-American and Hispanic students. Most students come from middle to upper-income families.

Transportation is also a deterrent, given that most participants will have to travel to the college campuses. And unlike Florida, Washington students must also pay for their textbooks and course materials, which average about $400 a quarter, Hanson said.