New York Explores ‘Dual Enrollment’ Programs to Deter High School Dropouts
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Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 10/30/2007 2:10:00 PM
New York may soon offer potential dropouts an attractive incentive: they’ll be able to earn college credits while still in high school and graduate with a bachelor’s degree in just three years.
If approved by the state legislature, the $100 million Smart Scholars program, recently okayed by the state’s Board of Regents, will provide at least 12,000 disadvantaged students the opportunity to consolidate the traditional four years of high school and four years of college into just seven years.
To qualify for the program, students must be identified as “academically at-risk” for dropping out or failing in college. They must also lack the financial resources to attend college. If legislators approve, students will start enrolling by 2009.
The dual enrollment program will provide grants—funded by private donations—to colleges and universities that partner with school districts, allowing students to receive extra academic support as early as ninth grade. Students will start taking early college courses in the 11th and 12th grades so that by high school graduation, they will have completed all the necessary coursework to enter a second-year-level baccalaureate program.
A recent study of dual enrollment programs in Florida and New York found that participating students had a greater chance of earning a high school diploma, enrolling in postsecondary education, and continuing in college into the second and third years. The study, “The Postsecondary Achievement of Participants in Dual Enrollment,” also found that low-income students benefited more from these programs than others.
And evidence shows that these programs work: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funds about 130 early-college high school programs for students who are educationally at-risk. Currently, there’s a significant gap between students of color and white and Asian students when it comes to achieving higher education, says the Board of Regents.
In New York State, for example, there was a significant gap in the six-year graduation rate for black and Hispanic students (48 percent and 45 percent, respectively), compared to white and Asian students (67 percent).
