College credit for high schoolers
Moving from high school to college traditionally has been a major life transition. For many, it marks the dividing line between childhood studies and pursuing education as an adult.
Unfortunately, that dividing line is impossible for many students to cross. Young people with limited resources or limited experience with the higher education system often can't make the leap from high school to college.
In today's competitive economy, Ohio can't afford to let these students fall by the wayside. That's why we advocate for programs that erase the boundaries between high school and college — programs that result in more students getting education beyond high school and that help families with the expense of college.
These programs include:
- Early college high schools provide a supportive environment and high expections that allow students to attend high school and college at the same time. Their students, most of them teenagers who would not attend college otherwise, can graduate with as much as an associate degree or 60 hours of college credit.
- Post Secondary Enrollment Options, or PSEO, is a dual enrollment policy that allows high school students to take college courses and receive both high school and college credit, with tuition costs paid by the state.
- Seniors to Sophomores is a state program introduced by Gov. Ted Strickland in 2008 that expands the dual enrollment options for high school seniors, giving them the opportunity to earn a year's worth of both high school and college credit at no cost to them.
Dual Enrollment Summit
More than 250 educators from both secondary and postsecondary institutions took part in the Dual Enrollment Partnership's Dual Enrollment Summit Oct. 18 at Ohio Dominican University in Columbus. The daylong summit explored the role of dual enrollment in Ohio featured Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric Fingerhut and Ohio Deputy Superintendent of Instruction Marilyn Troyer discussing their visions for the future. Ohio Education Matters was a sponsor of this event.
Remarks of Marilyn Troyer, Deputy Superintendent of Ohio Department of Education
Remarks of Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric Fingerhut
Ohio's PSEO policy
For two decades, Ohio high school students have been able to take college courses for both high school and college credit at no cost to them, thanks to the Ohio Post Secondary Enrollment Options policy (PSEO). The Promise of Dual Enrollment: Assessing Ohio’s Early College Access Policy, published in 2007 by KnowledgeWorks, was the first report to collect and analyze available data on how effective the policy is in better preparing students and the state’s workforce.
It found both promise and problems in how the PSEO policy is implemented across the state — insights that remain relevant today.
Researchers found that high school students who take college courses through PSEO may be more likely to attend college and get degrees faster than the general population, but identified faults in how data is collected that make it impossible to determine whether these outcomes are a result of early college access. The report’s findings also contradict some commonly held conceptions of how the policy has been used, document both direct and indirect costs associated with the policy, and pinpoint possible inequalities in access.
It is crucial that policy makers, educators and the public understand the importance of early college access and limitations of the current policy. Used to its best advantage, Ohio’s PSEO policy has potential to be an effective 21st-century model that crosses old education boundaries and increases access and preparation for all Ohioans.