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By PETER HANCOCK | Capitol News Illinois
As the cost of higher education continues to rise in Illinois and elsewhere, a growing number of students are working to earn as many college credits as possible while they are still in high school.
But even as the popularity continues to grow for “dual credit” offerings – courses in which a student earns credit toward both a high school diploma and a college degree – a new study shows disparities between racial, economic and geographic groups are also widening.
According to the study, dual credit programs are more prevalent in districts that serve rural communities and small towns in downstate Illinois than in suburban and urban districts. They are less prevalent in districts that serve minority and lower-income students.
And even within individual districts, the study found that white students and those from more affluent backgrounds were more likely to enroll in and complete dual credit courses than minority students or students from lower-income households.
The study was conducted by the Illinois Workforce & Education Research Collaborative, or IWERC, a research arm of the University of Illinois System’s Discovery Partners Institute, which works to develop the state’s high-tech workforce and economy.
Dual credit courses are offered through partnerships between high schools and postsecondary institutions.
According to the study, a small number of dual credit courses are offered through public four-year universities, but the overwhelming majority – about 97 percent – are offered through local community colleges. As a result, the courses offered in any given high school are strongly influenced by the policies and programs of the community college district that overlaps with the high school district.
Sarah Cashdollar, an IWERC researcher and author of the report, said in an interview that details of those partnership agreements may help explain some of the disparities between school districts and between different geographic areas.
“It is costly to provide dual credit, especially for community colleges,” she said. “Depending on the partnership, it can also be costly for the school district. And so there might be variation in terms of how community college districts have managed those costs.”
Although students typically pay some tuition to enroll in a dual credit course, Cashdollar said the cost is typically only a fraction of what students would pay otherwise, which is one of the reasons why dual credit programs help lower the overall cost of higher education.
Read more here.
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