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Hello all, I am currently in my third semester of the Student Development and Leadership in Higher Education program at Angelo State University. I currently serve as an academic advisor at Rend Lake College in Ina, Illinois. The purpose of this legal guide is to look into the laws that build best practices while advising high school students and other underage students. Since most laws affect minors differently than adults, it is important to understand the differences present between advising minors and more traditional college-age students. Additionally, it is of the utmost ethical priority for advisors to best set up their students for success, be it as a dual enrollment student or traditional student. This guide would be primarily helpful for all advisors that interact with high school students, most often community college advisors; but, it can also be helpful for all advisors as even four-year universities occasionally see high-achieving early graduates.

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Interviewee: Jena Jensik, Dean of Enrollment Services, Rend Lake College

Importance of Topic:
This legal guide is important as working with minors is an especially finicky situation, especially for someone whose majority of work is centered around adult interactions. Between all the various laws on childhood education, minors have more protections in some areas such as social interaction, but fewer protections in others such as privacy regulations with parents. As more and more colleges are offer dual credit and dual enrollment programs to ease students into college, the demand for advisors to build academic plans for high school students grows with it. The Department of Education's most recent statistics for dual enrollment/credit coursework showed a total of 34 percent of all U.S. high school students took a course for postsecondary credit. In the 2017-18 academic year, 82 percent of all public high schools offered dual or concurrent enrollment programs.

Best Practices:

Always have thorough documentation of interactions with students

Assume the student has no knowledge of college topics or process; always overexplain

Provide thorough help to students about college in general, even if it means helping them get ready to attend another institution

Emerging Area:
As mentioned before, the growth of dual credit and dual enrollment programs alone is worth watching. As the average cost of attendance continues to rise, prospective students will continue to emphasize finding cost cutting measures, such as free or reduced cost high school college credits. Additionally, as these programs grow in number, increased regulation of how these credits can be obtained will be put in place. For example, the State of Illinois recently passed legislation heightening the credential requirement for who can teach dual credit classes in state high schools.

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NACADA, the professional association for academic advising, held a webinar in 2017 on the impact academic advising has on dual and concurrent enrollment students. The webinar looked into the importance of and best practices on how to best advise students through higher education in the K-12 system without becoming overwhelmed or misguided about their college career. Some of the best practices mentioned include regular collaboration with high school guidance counselors and maintaining open transparency while discussing a high school student's academic future.

Citation:
NACADA Executive Office. (2017, September 28). The Impact of Academic Advising on Dual and Concurrent Enrollment Students: A NACADA-NACEP Collaborative Webinar [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4iAiP48eac

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The Impact of Acad. Advsg on Dual & Concurrent Enrollment Stdnts: A NACADA-NACEP Collab. Webinar

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Slide 4 - News Article Discussing College Readiness of High School Dual Enrollment Students

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Slide 4 - News Article Discussing College Readiness of High School Dual Enrollment Students

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This article discusses the rapid growth of dual enrollment and dual credit programs and the growing concerns from universities about the rigor of high-school-based credit courses.

Key Points:

Thanks to dual credit programs, high school students account for up to half of community college enrollment at some institutions.

Dual credit students are more likely to enroll in and complete college in a quicker fashion.

Dual enrollment is creating financial issues for four-year colleges, as the most common dual credit courses cover introductory core courses such as freshman English, U.S. history, and mathematics.

Universities are also concerned about the rigor of college courses taught in high schools due to the pressure of keeping success rates high.

Many professors claim that dual credit courses are not equivalent to their traditional college counterparts

Because of this, many accreditation bodies are beginning to heighten the credential requirements of who can teach dual credit courses.

Some states are now requiring teachers to have a master's degree or a certain number of graduate-level hours in the curriculum they want to teach, not just education

Others are considering how access to dual credit courses may also be inadvertently widening racial and socioeconomic gaps in success.

The National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships (NACEP) is a relatively new accreditation body that is growing in popularity to help ease concerns over the quality of dual enrollment or dual credit classes.

As of the article's publication, 10 states require NACEP accreditation, and another 10 modeled their standards after NACEP's.

Citation

Field, K. (2021). The rise of dual credit: More and more students take college classes while still in high school. That is boosting degree attainment but also raising doubts about rigor. Education Next, 21(1), 56-62.

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Aniken Castaneda took his first college course, art history, in the summer before his freshman year in high school. He liked the idea of being a college student, he said, and his parents told him it would give him a head start on a degree.

"It was kind of cool to be ahead of everybody," he recalled.

And he didn't stop there. By the time Castaneda graduated from Mercedes High School, in Mercedes, Texas, he had amassed 30 credits, enough to bypass of full a year of college. He hopes to complete his bachelor's degree at Sam Houston State University in just two years.

"I'm taking as many classes as possible because its free and it's something my parents won't have to worry about and pay for," he said.

Castaneda is part of a dual credit boom that is taking place in Texas and nationally, as states seek ways to get more students into and through college with less debt. The trend may be accelerated by the move to distance learning in response to the coronavirus pandemic, as taking an online college course instead of a high school course becomes as simple as just clicking to open a different hyperlink while sitting at the same home computer.

Between the 2002-3 and 2010-11 academic years, the number of high school students taking college courses for credit increased by 68 percent, to nearly 1.4 million, the latest federal data shows (see Figure 1). By 2015, nearly 70 percent of high schools offered dual enrollment, according to the Government Accountability Office.

In Texas, the number of students participating in the program grew by 753 percent between the fall of 2000 and the fall of 2017.

The explosion has been a boon for the nation's community colleges, which have seen adult enrollments plummet since the end of the last recession. At some two-year colleges, high school students now make up half of enrollments, according to The American Association of Community Colleges.

The rise of dual credit has benefitted students, too. Research shows that students who take dual credit courses are more likely to enroll in and complete college than students who don't-and to finish faster, too. A few studies have found disproportionate benefits for low-income students.

"When a student successfully completes a dual credit course, their mindset changes," said Michael Villarreal, a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio who has studied the impact of dual credit."They see that they can do college level coursework-that they are college material."

Christian Martinez, the valedictorian at Mercedes High School, said taking dual credit courses gave him the confidence that he could succeed in medical school.

"I don't feel too anxious for college," he said. "Once I knew I could commit myself to my studies, I knew I could do it in long run."

Dual enrollment is creating some financial challenges for four-year colleges, which depend on large lecture-based introductory courses to subsidize more expensive upper-level offerings and to recruit students to majors. With more students knocking off core courses in high school, core 101 classes are shrinking, and humanities departments are losing money and majors. A Texas study found the most common dual enrollment courses taken from 2012 to 2015 were English 1301 (Composition I), English 1302 (Composition II), History 1302 (United States History II), Government 2305 (Federal Government), History 1301 (United States History I), Economics 2301 (Principles of Macroeconomics), and Math 1314 (College Algebra).

Meanwhile, doubts about rigor dog the field, with skeptics asking whether the courses-which are often taught in high schools, by high school instructors-are truly comparable to college classes. In Texas and elsewhere, instructors have complained that they're being pressured to lower their standards to keep pass rates high, while professors have said students who took core courses in high school are struggling in upper-level classes.

Last year, the American Association of University Professors issued a position paper that warned that, when it comes to dual enrollment, "financial considerations stemming from decreased enrollment too often predominate over pedagogical concerns."

"Dual credit courses are not the equivalent of traditional college courses," said James Klein, a history professor at Del Mar College, a two-year institution in Corpus Christie, Texas, who helped draft the paper.

In addition, racial and socioeconomic gaps in access to and enrollment in dual-credit courses have led some school and campus leaders to question whether the programs may be inadvertently deepening a divide they were supposed to bridge, giving a head start to students who would have attended college without them.
What About Rigor?
Doubts about the rigor of dual credit courses have led some colleges to limit the number of courses that will transfer or to accept only those that were taught on college campuses, by college faculty.

At the heart of those doubts is disagreement about whether high school teachers are qualified to teach college-level courses and fears that they're not holding students to the same standards as college faculty would.

Castaneda and Martinez, who have taken courses taught by high school teachers as well as those taught by college faculty, said their dual credit courses were more challenging than their regular high school classes.

"Everything was at a much faster pace," said Martinez. "I had to stay mentally involved the whole time, while in my high school classes I could slack off and still get it."

Martinez said the professors were stricter than the high school teachers, who knew students personally and would go easy on them when they struggled.

Rules governing instructor qualifications for dual credit vary by state and accreditor. In just under half the states, high school teachers are required to possess the same credentials as faculty at the partner college, according to an analysis by the Education Commission of the States; in another 19, they must have earned either a master's degree or a certain number of graduate credits in the field in which they're teaching.

Enforcement of the rules has been spotty, a recent crackdown by the Higher Learning Commission revealed.

The commission reminded institutions in 2015 that dual enrollment instructors had to have a master's degree or 18 graduate-level credit hours in the subject they were teaching. That set off a scramble among colleges in the commission's 19-state jurisdiction. Though a majority of teachers in those states possessed master's degrees, many of their degrees were in education, not a specialty. Faced with the threat of widespread cancellations of classes, the commission issued a reprieve, giving programs seven years to come into compliance.

The north-central accreditor isn't the only one raising red flags about dual credit, however. In 2018, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges issued a policy statement reiterating its rules regarding dual credit courses. Steven Sheeley, its senior vice president, said the reminder was prompted by recent growth in the programs.

"The institution has to demonstrate that it has control over admissions, curriculum, and faculty, so it doesn't look like a second-class course," he said.

Faculty associations, including the American Association of University Professors and the American Historical Association, have also registered their concerns The AHA called on history departments to exert "greater oversight of curriculum and instruction" and "ensure a college-level course is being offered."

James Grossman, the American Historical Association's executive director, said that with dual enrollment courses, unlike in International Baccalaureate or Advanced Placement classes, "there is no common assessment" to make sure that what students are learning is comparable. "So you are really at the mercy of the oversight of the teacher and the teacher's syllabus."

In Texas, where more than 200,000 students participated in dual credit last fall, Raymund Paredes, the state's former commissioner of higher education, has called for slowing the growth of dual enrollment, warning the state has "oversold the potential of dual credit courses."

"The just there's no way all those students could be college ready, or even close to college ready," he said in an interview.

Harrison Keller, the current commissioner and a former top administrator at The University of Texas at Austin, shares those concerns. He worries that high school dual credit instructors may be tempted to water down their courses "because the high school grade is high-stakes for students" in the state.In Texas, the top 10 percent of each class is guaranteed admission to the state's selective public colleges.

Keller, who replaced Paredes in 2019, said that while some districts are working to ensure that dual credit classes are as challenging as regular college courses, too many instructors still favor rote memorization over "a deeper engagement with the material."

When he was still at UT's flagship campus, Keller created a program that tackles that problem. Known as OnRamps, the program has faculty design courses and train their high-school counterparts to teach them, using inquiry- and project-based methods. To discourage grade inflation, students receive two grades-one from the high school teacher and one from the college professor.

The goal, he said, is "to help teachers and students understand what expectations look like on the higher ed side," and to give students "the opportunity to recalibrate while the stakes are still low."

Chester Finn, Jr., president emeritus of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, said he'd like to see more programs like OnRamps, but acknowledged that such efforts are "expensive and laborious and not necessarily in the self-interest of a lot of institutions."

"A lot of institutions that offer dual credit are doing it because they want enrollment-the butts in the seats and the state dollars" that come with them, he said.
Uneven Growth and Persistent Gaps
Dual enrollment is hardly a new concept. Colleges have been offering individual courses to high schoolers for decades, and the first state-wide program was created in the mid-1980's, in Minnesota.

What has changed is the way it's used.

Like Advanced Placement, dual enrollment started as a way to give more advanced students access to challenging coursework. It was seen as solution to senioritis and the wasted senior year.

But as the cost of college rose, and graduation gaps hardened, dual credit was repurposed. Policymakers began pitching the programs as a way to lower the cost of a degree and put more low-income and first-generation students on the path to postsecondary education.

Over time, states began offering the programs as early as freshman year. By 2010-11, forty percent of institutions allowed tenth graders to take their courses, and a quarter gave 9th graders that option, a federal survey found.

Some of that expansion took place in early-college high schools, which allow students to obtain both a high school diploma and an associate degree. Such schools multiplied after 2002, when the Gates Foundation began pouring millions into the early-college movement. Texas has dozens of them.

Yet in many parts of the country, dual credit still isn't reaching many of the low-income, rural and minority students who need it most. Just over half of high-poverty schools-where a majority of the students are Black and Hispanic-offer dual enrollment courses, and only a quarter of small, high-poverty schools do, a study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found. In districts that offer dual enrollment, Black and Hispanic students tend to participate at lower rates than their white and Asian peers, other research shows.

The growth of dual enrollment nationally has been uneven. Participation rates vary dramatically by state-ranging from barely one percent in Massachusetts to 23 percent in Indiana. Participation also varies by race, with 10.3 percent of white students taking dual credit, compared to 4.7 percent of Black students and 5.7 percent of Hispanic students, research by the Community College Research Center found.

In Texas, students of color make up a larger share of dual credit enrollments than they used to. In 2007, Hispanics accounted for 38 percent of enrollments and African Americans accounted for 5 percent; by 2017, those shares were 46 and 7 percent respectively, an increase "consistent with student enrollment of Texas public high schools," according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Even so, just 10 percent of Black students and 16 percent of Hispanic students who graduated from Texas high schools in 2015 participated in dual credit in 11th or 12th grade, compared a 26 percent of white students, a study by the American Institutes for Research found.

Those gaps may be partly due to differences in the availability of courses. High-poverty schools, which disproportionately enroll students of color, may have a harder time attracting teachers with the credentials needed to teach dual credit courses than wealthier ones do.

But racial and socioeconomic gaps exist even in schools with robust dual credit programs. In fact, districts and metro areas with higher overall participation rates tend to have deeper racial and ethnic divides than those with lower ones, a study by the Community College Research Centerfound. This suggests that there are other variables at play.

One factor may be the programs' eligibility criteria, which often include a minimum GPA or minimum score on a standardized test. While some states have opened up dual enrollment to average students, many still limit the classes to higher-achieving ones, according to the Education Commission of the States.

The cost of the classes may also be contributing to the gaps. Though most states offer the courses at a discounted rate-and a little over half make them free-students are often responsible for fees, textbooks and transportation costs, a report by the College in High School Alliance found.

A final factor could be educator bias. Schools often rely on the recommendations of counselors,seventy percent of whom are white, to identify students for dual enrollment. However unintentionally, their "judgments may be shaped by implicit (or even explicit) racial bias," according to the Education Trust, a non-profit focused on equity in education.

Erik Gilbert, a history professor at Arkansas State University, said he's seen a demographic shift in his classroom in recent years. Students enrolling in his introductory courses these days are more often minorities, adults, and graduates of rural high schools; the suburban, white, and middle-class students are going straight into upper-level ones.

Gilbert said he would like to do away with dual enrollment altogether, so students from across the social and economic spectrum can learn together. He said that general education used to be like the military draft-"it pulled people from all backgrounds together," he said. "That's not happening as much anymore as people go directly into majors."
What the Research Shows
Studies in Texas and elsewhere have found that dual enrollment boosts key student outcomes, including high school graduation, college enrollment, college persistence and completion and time to degree.

Still, most of the evidence for dual credit has come from small-scale, single-state studies that haven't controlled for selection bias: the possibility that students who choose the classes are more motivated, and more skilled, than those who don't. In a 2017 literature review,
the Institute of Education Sciences found only two studies that met its standards for rigor, and both focused on early-college high schools.

In Texas, a pair of recent studies has ignited a debate over the benefits of dual credit. One, by the University of Texas system, found that dual credit students had higher GPAs than students who came in without college credits, and were three times as likely to graduate in four years.

The other, commissioned by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, found that dual credit increased the odds of graduating for traditionally advantaged students only; for lower income students, it actually hurt their chances of completing college.

One surprising finding in the system's study was that dual credit did not reduce borrowing for the majority of participants. While students surveyed by the researchers cited "saving time and money" as a major motivator for taking dual credit courses, only those who entered college with 60 or more credits- the number required for an associate's degree-saw any significant reduction in student loan debt.

The Texas system's report doesn't speculate on why that is. But Angela Guadian-Mendez, director of student completion for the Alamo Colleges district, said she thinks it has something to do with colleges' transfer policies.

Texas, like 28 other states, requires its public colleges to accept dual enrollment credit with no added restrictions.But in Texas, at least, colleges don't have to count the credits toward the major. That means that many students must take additional classes-and incur additional debt-to graduate.

In an effort minimize this credit waste, the Alamo Colleges district recently created a "red-yellow-green" system that classifies dual credit students by their degree of focus. Students who aren't sure what they want to study, or where they want to attend college, are limited to 9-18 credit hours of specific courses; those who have identified a pre-major or "career cluster" can take 21 to 45 credit hours, and those who have homed in on a both a college and pre-major can take 60-84.

"Now we have a system that can catch students and save them time and money," says Guadian-Mendez.

So are dual credit courses a good investment for taxpayers, despite the credit loss? Research conducted in Texas and other states suggests they are.

For every dollar that Texas spent on dual credit instruction in 2016-2017, taxpayers are expected to gain $1.18 in reduced spending and increased tax revenue-the result of students taking less time to graduateand entering the workforce earlier-according to the coordinating board's study, which was conducted by the American Institutes for Research. The long-term benefits of graduating more students, through increased tax revenue and reduced spending on social services, are projected to be almost double the cost.

Another AIR study that looked exclusively at early-college high schools found an even greater return on investment. Though such schools cost about $3,800 more per student, on average, than traditional high schools, their lifetime public benefit was about $23,973 per student, a cost-to-benefit ratio of roughly 6:1.
The Future of Dual Credit
Hoping to assure skeptical parents and policymakers of their quality, a growing number of programs are seeking recognition from the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships, the field's accreditor. Ten states now require or encourage NACEP accreditation, and ten have modeled their own standards after the accreditor's.

To qualify for accreditation, programs must meet 16 standards showing that courses offered in high school are of the same quality and rigor as courses offered on campus; that dual-credit students are held to the same standards of achievement as regular college students; and that instructors meet the academic requirements for faculty, among other things.

Eligibility for accreditation is determined by teams of peer reviewers, who study documents submitted by applicants and interview program heads and instructors. In a departure from common practice in higher education accreditation, the reviewers don't typically conduct site visits.

That will change this year, when reviewers will begin visiting all applicants, in an effort to conduct "a more thorough review," said Jennie Patteson, the alliance's director of accreditation.

"In this business, folks can make everything sound great on paper, but when you interact with them, you get a better idea of the picture," she said.

Meanwhile, the dual credit enrollment boom shows no signs of slowing. Last year, state legislators considered at least 219 bills related to dual enrollment, according to the Education Commission of the States. Nearly half aimed to broaden access to the courses, either by lowering their cost or by removing barriers to student participation.

In Washington, the U.S. Education Department is running an experiment that is sending Pell grants to some students in dual credit programs. If Congress votes to open up the Pell program to dual credit students permanently, the courses will become affordable to many more students, and dual credit will grow exponentially.

The nationwide embrace of dual credit reflects a recognition on the part of policymakers that their economies will suffer if they don't get low-income students and students of color to finish college. Many states have set ambitious postsecondary attainment goals, and they see dual enrollment as a key strategy to reach them, said Jennifer Zinth, a consultant who has written extensively on dual credit.

Dual credit will also remain a critical revenue stream for the nation's community colleges, particularly as the number of high school graduates continues to decline nationally. In a 2016 survey by the Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, 60 percent of college leaders said they had adopted dual enrollment as a "strategic enrollment initiative," and three-quarters said the programs were an important recruiting tool.

Still, the dual credit sector could face a few checks on its growth, including a shortage of qualified instructors. Though some districts have offered teachers financial incentives to get credentialed to teach dual credit, such efforts have yielded only incremental progress, according to a recent report by Jobs for the Future. "At the end of the day, it's going to be hard to find enough teachers who fit the bill," said Joel Vargas, a vice president at the organization.

For dual credit to continue to grow, and thrive, states and schools will need to find ways to train more teachers, advocates say.

They'll also need to tackle the persistent racial, socioeconomic and geographic gaps that undermine the programs' goals. Simply expanding the programs, without confronting the causes of those gaps, "could actually exacerbate them," warned John Fink, a senior research associate at the Community College Research Center.

And they'll need to come up with new ways to demonstrate the quality of their programs, as the debate over the rigor and quality of dual credit courses rages on, with no end in sight.

"I think we'll always wrestle with it," said David Troutman, a vice chancellor in the University of Texas system and the lead author of the system's report. "I don't think it will ever be put to rest."
Kelly Field is a Boston-area freelancer who writes about equity and innovation in education.

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Aniken Castaneda took his first college course, art history, in the summer before his freshman year in high school. He liked the idea of being a college student, he said, and his parents told him it would give him a head start on a degree.

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Slide 5 - Dual Enrollment, Multiple Issues

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Slide 5 - Dual Enrollment, Multiple Issues

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This article summarizes the findings of a study done by the University of Texas System about the pros and cons of dual enrollment programs.

Article Summary and Study Findings:

The study found that there is a mostly positive view of dual enrollment among those involved with said programs

71 percent of UT students brought some type of college credit into the university, split between Advanced Placement (AP) and/or dual enrollment classes

Students brought in an average of 18 credit hours

Latino students were the most likely to bring in dual credit classes

Dual credit students are more likely to be retained and graduate than non-credit bearing students and hold higher GPAs

Dual credit students also admit that the programs gave students a false sense of confidence and limited time for academic exploration due to having core classes completed.

The report made recommendations for students to compare course syllabi between their dual credit class and the corresponding college equivalent, recommended high school institutions to allow for collaboration with college resources, and limit the amount of teachers who split their time between teaching college and high school courses

Citation:
Jaschik, S. (2018, August 20). Study finds mixed impact of dual enrollment. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved July 24, 2022, from https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2018/08/20/study-finds-mixed-impact-dual-enrollment

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In college admissions circles and among those trying to encourage more students to go to college, dual enrollment is the subject of much praise. When students take courses in high school and earn college credit, the theory goes, they will be better prepared for college, more likely to enroll and more likely to graduate. The growing popularity of the Advanced Placement program is one part of dual enrollment (especially at high schools that send many on to college), but many high schools have their own programs.

A new report by the University of Texas System confirms those positive views of dual enrollment, and as well as the growing popularity of the programs. But the report also finds doubts about dual enrollment -- both among students and faculty members throughout the UT System. The report provides a more nuanced view of the issues than one hears at many higher education meetings.

University of Texas students are definitely using dual-enrollment options, with 61 percent of those who entered the system in 2015 bringing some kind of college credit with them. In that year, 23 percent enrolled with Advanced Placement credit only, 27 percent with other dual-enrollment credit only and 11 percent with both types of credit. The median number of credits, at 18, is significant. Latino students were the most likely to arrive with dual credit, with 45 percent doing so (while making up only 35 percent of all students).

Much of the data in the report back up the reasons cited by supporters of the programs. Those who enter UT with some credit from dual programs are more likely to be retained and graduate than are those who enter without credit, and they have higher grade point averages in their first, second and third years. Students who enroll with credit are also, on average, graduating one semester earlier than those who enter without any credit.

In surveys and focus group discussions with students, they praised these results. But students were also ambivalent.

"Some students criticized dual credit for giving a false sense of confidence, reducing time for exploration due to requirements already being met through dual credit, and restricting opportunities because of a shorter time in college," the report says.

Related to those issues, many students reported feeling pressure to immediately enroll in courses to start a major -- rather than exploring different fields.

Faculty members interviewed expressed a number of concerns, the report says.

"Faculty from UT System academic institutions are concerned with the quality and rigor of dual credit courses, and they mentioned several things that might affect quality and rigor," the report says. "First, they were concerned about whether dual credit courses had the same learning objectives, instructional materials, and assessment/measurement (tests and papers) as a four-year college course, recommending that students compare course syllabi. They also wondered whether the academic environment within high schools provides the resources (lab space and collaborative peers) for dual credit instructors to produce high-quality college courses. Finally, the faculty expressed their concern that course quality might be limited when it is taught by high school-based instructors who shift between the roles of teacher and college instructor throughout the day and have the flexibility to let students retake tests and extend deadlines."

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Study finds mixed impact of dual enrollment

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In college admissions circles and among those trying to encourage more students to go to college, dual enrollment is the subject of much praise. When students take courses in high school and earn college credit, the theory goes, they will be better prepared for college, more likely to enroll and more likely to graduate.

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Slide 6 - Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

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Slide 6 - Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

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Source of Law: Federal Statutory Law

Citation: 20 U.S.C. § 1242g; 34 CFR Part 99

Link: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2011-title20/pdf/USCODE-2011-title20-chap31-subchapIII-part4-sec1232g.pdf

Law and Requirements:

Primary law that protects the privacy of educational records

Applies to any school that receives federal funding

Parents have respective rights over students until they reach the age of 18

Parents or students have the right to inspect and review a student's records maintained by the school

Parents or students have the right to petition a record correction if believed to be inaccurate or misleading

Schools must have written permission from parent or student to release any information on the records with limited exceptions, such as...

School officials with educational interest

Other schools to which a student is transferring

Officials for audit or evaluation purposes

Parties in connection to financial aid

Judicial orders

Health and safety emergencies

State and local authorities

Schools may also disclose directory information (name, address, phone number, etc.) without consent, but must also give students or parents reasonable time to request to not release directory information

Gray area with dual enrollment students

Explanation from U.S. Department of Education

FERPA rights transfer to students at any age when attending post-secondary institution

Dual enrollment student records can be exchanged between the two schools

Parents still retain FERPA rights for students under 18 at the high school and may inspect any records sent by the postsecondary institution to the high school

Postsecondary institution may disclose "personally identifiable information" to parents if the student is a legal dependant by IRS rules

Additional Citation

Family educational rights and privacy act (FERPA). US Department of Education (ED). (2021, August 25). Retrieved July 24, 2022, from https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html

U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.). If a student under 18 is enrolled in both high school and a local college, do parents have the right to inspect and review his or her education records? Protecting Student Privacy. Retrieved July 24, 2022, from https://studentprivacy.ed.gov/faq/if-student-under-18-enrolled-both-high-school-and-local-college-do-parents-have-right-inspect

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Source of Law: Judicial Law

Citation: A.H. v. French, 999 F.3d 98 (2d Cir. 2021)

Link: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca2/20-1772/20-1772-2021-01-15.html

Law and Requirements:

Parents of students at a Roman Catholic high school in Vermont sued the Secretary of Vermont's Agency of Education, arguing that students in private, religious-based schools should be allowed to participate in the state's dual enrollment program

Basis of the argument was the first and fourteenth amendments of the United States Constitution, guaranteeing religious freedom and equal protection and liberties.

The state required schools to be publicly funded to participate since the public foots the bill on these classes, thus exempting all private schools

District court initially denied a preliminary injunction motion by the plaintiffs, but the injunction was granted by the U.S. Second District Court of Appeals

The case is still ongoing, but as of today, Vermont private school students are allowed to participate in the state's dual enrollment program

The Department of Justice also released a statement of interest in 2019 before the injunction was granted that the United States officially supports the plaintiffs in the case, with official statements from the Assistant Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney for Vermont

Additional citation:

U.S. Department of Justice. (2019, May 9).

Department of Justice Files Statement of Interest in Vermont First Amendment Free Exercise Case [Press release]. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-files-statement-interest-vermont-first-amendment-free-exercise-case

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The Second Circuit held that the district court abused its discretion by denying plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, holding that plaintiffs will likely succeed in showing that, as applied, the Dual Enrollment Program’s “publicly funded” requirement violated their rights under the Free…

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Slide 8 - Go to High School, Go to College Act of 2019

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Slide 8 - Go to High School, Go to College Act of 2019

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Source of Law: Federal Statutory Law

Citations: H.R.3268 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): Go to High School, Go to College Act of 2019, H.R.3268, 116th Cong. (2019), http://www.congress.gov/.

S.1888 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): Go to High School, Go to College Act of 2019, S.1888, 116th Cong. (2019), http://www.congress.gov/.

Link: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/hr3268/text/ih#link=2&nearest=HC859B5FCDBD14D83AB1FABF69F6C5AB8

Law and Requirements:

Pending bipartisan legislation sitting in committee on both the House and Senate floors

Bill would authorize a pilot program for expanding Pell grant eligibility to high school students participating in dual enrollment courses

The program would allow students to use Pell grants to cover the tuition for dual enrollment classes

Students would be able to earn up to two semesters of college credit, without using any of the 12 allowable semesters eligible after graduation

Bill has six democratic and one republican cosponsor on the House bill, and one democratic co-sponsor on the identical Senate bill

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I

116th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 3268

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

A BILL

2.

(k)
(1)
For the award years beginning on July 1, 2020, and ending on June 30, 2026, the Secretary shall carry out a pilot program to award College in High School Federal Pell Grants to eligible students to support enrollment in, and completion of, postsecondary courses offered through a dual or concurrent enrollment program or an early college high school.

(2)
The Secretary is authorized to enroll not more than 250 eligible institutions into the College in High School Federal Pell Grant Pilot Program under this subsection, with the intent of serving approximately 50,000 students.

(3)
The Secretary is authorized to extend the period of the pilot program under this subsection at the discretion of the Secretary.

(4)
An eligible institution that desires to participate in the College in High School Federal Pell Grant Pilot Program under this subsection shall submit an application to the Secretary at such time, in such manner, and accompanied by such information as the Secretary may require. As part of the application, the eligible institution shall-

(A)
provide an assurance that such institution will offer eligible students enrolled in the pilot program the opportunity to earn not less than 12 credits on a pathway towards a degree or credential;

(B)
describe how the college course sequences offered to such eligible students are part of a pathway towards a degree or credential;

(C)
provide an assurance that such institution will provide all students enrolled in dual or concurrent enrollment programs and early college high school programs, alongside students receiving College in High School Federal Pell Grants under this subsection, necessary support services to such eligible students, such as academic tutoring, high school to college transition support, guidance counseling, or other comparable services designed to increase student participation for and success in postsecondary education;

(D)
describe how such institution will-

(i)
ensure that all students enrolled in dual or concurrent enrollment programs and early college high school programs, alongside students receiving College in High School Federal Pell Grants under this subsection, complete the Free Application for Federal Student Financial Aid (FAFSA);

(ii)
assist all such students with completion of the FAFSA; and

(iii)
commit to advising students receiving College in High School Federal Pell Grants under this subsection about how receipt of a College in High School Federal Pell Grant will impact their future financial aid eligibility;

(E)
describe the criteria for admission to the pilot program that are used;

(F)
describe the instructors that the pilot program will be using to teach the courses, and what procedures the institution has in place to ensure that the pilot program is using qualified instructors compliant with State laws and accreditation standards;

(G)
describe how such institution will conduct outreach to such eligible students, their parents or caregivers, first-generation college students, and historically underrepresented students, to encourage enrollment in the pilot program;

(H)
commit to being a participant in a statewide articulation agreement, have an articulation agreement with at least one public institution of higher education, or be able to document in another way successful history of credit transfer of dual or concurrent enrollment program coursework to other public institutions of higher education;

(I)
provide an assurance that such institution will inform such eligible students of their transfer options before they enroll, including which other institutions of higher education are likely to accept credits accrued through participation in the pilot program and under what conditions;

(J)
provide an assurance that such institution will provide such eligible students with financial counseling regarding how to use any refund checks they receive for Federal Pell Grant funds in excess of the costs of tuition and fees for students accumulating more than 2 semesters of College in High School Federal Pell Grants;

(K)
commit to supplement, not supplant, the use of recurring public funding already received from Federal or State sources; and

(L)
commit not to charge such eligible students any additional costs above that covered by the student's College in High School Federal Pell Grant.

(5)
The Secretary shall award priority for participation in the College in High School Federal Pell Grant Pilot Program under this subsection to-

(A)
an eligible institution that is partnered with a high-need local educational agency that serves one or more high-need high schools that serve a high concentration of high-need students; and

(B)
with respect to eligible institutions that offer a dual or concurrent enrollment program for which certified high school instructors will be used to teach the college classes, an eligible institution that has received accreditation by the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships.

(6)
The Secretary shall ensure that eligible institutions awarded participation in the College in High School Federal Pell Grant Pilot Program reflect a diverse array of eligible institutions, including by geography, program focus, and institution type.

(7)
(A)
Except as otherwise provided under this subsection, the provisions of this section shall apply to College in High School Federal Pell Grants awarded under this subsection.

(B)
For the purposes of carrying out the College in High School Federal Pell Grant Pilot Program under this subsection, for students enrolled at eligible institutions who have been accepted into the pilot program, the Secretary shall-

(i)
waive the requirement under section 484(a)(1) that a student not be enrolled in an elementary or secondary school to be eligible to receive a Federal Pell Grant; and

(ii)
waive the requirement under section 484(d) that a student be a high school graduate to be eligible for a Federal Pell Grant.

(C)
Notwithstanding subsection (c)(5), an eligible student may receive not more than 2 semesters, or the equivalent of 2 semesters, of College in High School Federal Pell Grants, prior to drawing down from the student's 12 semester eligibility period for Federal Pell Grants.

(D)
For College in High School Federal Pell Grants that do not apply towards a student's 12 semester eligibility period for Federal Pell Grants, the size of the College in High School Federal Pell Grant shall be not more than the smaller of-

(i)
the amount determined under subsection (b); and

(ii)
the costs of tuition, fees, transportation, and instructional materials at the eligible institution at which the student is enrolled.

(8)
(A)
An eligible student who receives a College in High School Federal Pell Grant under this subsection may use the grant only for-

(i)
credit-bearing college coursework; and

(ii)
co-requisite courses.

(B)
The use of a College in High School Federal Pell Grant for non-credit bearing developmental coursework is prohibited.

(9)
(A)
The Secretary shall perform an evaluation, or contract with an appropriate nonprofit entity to conduct an evaluation, on the success of the College in High School Federal Pell Grant Pilot Program under this subsection. In addition, the Secretary shall provide updates to Congress and the public not less often than every 6 months on current participation in the College in High School Federal Pell Grant Pilot Program, and any barriers that are potentially affecting its success. The evaluation shall consider, to the extent practicable, for students receiving a College in High School Federal Pell Grant, disaggregated by student subgroup, the following:

(i)
Student participation in the pilot program.

(ii)
College credit accumulation.

(iii)
High school graduation rates.

(iv)
Postsecondary enrollment after high school graduation.

(v)
Postsecondary enrollment without remediation.

(vi)
Postsecondary persistence.

(vii)
Postsecondary completion.

(viii)
Differences in outcomes under clauses (i) through (vii) based upon type of institution, program model, and method of instruction.

(B)
Each eligible institution that participates in the College in High School Federal Pell Grant Pilot Program under this subsection shall report data to the Department for the purposes of completing the evaluation under subparagraph (A).

(10)
In this subsection:

(A)
The term co-requisite courses means courses designed for college students in need or remediation that combines credit-bearing college-level coursework with supplemental instruction.

(B)
The term dual or concurrent enrollment program has the meaning given the term in section 8101 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

(C)
The term early college high school has the meaning given the term in section 8101 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

(D)
The term first-generation college student means-

(i)
an individual both of whose parents did not complete a baccalaureate degree; or

(ii)
in the case of any individual who regularly resided with and received support from only 1 parent, an individual whose only such parent did not complete a baccalaureate degree.

(E)
The term high-need high school means a secondary school that meets any of the following:

(i)
Serves students not less than 50 percent of whom are students who meet either of the following:

(I)
Meet a measure of poverty as described in section 1113(a)(5) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

(II)
Are students described in any of the following items:

(aa)
Racial or ethnic groups that are historically underserved.

(bb)
Children with disabilities, as defined in section 602 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

(cc)
English learners, as defined in section 8101 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

(dd)
Migratory children, as defined in section 1309 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

(ee)
Homeless children and youths.

(ff)
Students who are in foster care or are aging out of the foster care system.

(gg)
Students with a parent who is a member of the Armed Forces (as defined in section 101(a)(4) of title 10, United States Code) on active duty (as defined in section 101(d) of such title).

(ii)
Is identified for comprehensive support and improvement under section 1111(c)(4)(D)(i) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

(iii)
Is implementing a targeted support and improvement plan as described in section 1111(d)(2) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

(F)
The term high-need local educational agency means a local educational agency-

(i)
that serves not fewer than 10,000 children from families with incomes below the poverty line;

(ii)
for which not less than 20 percent of the children served by the agency are from families with incomes below the poverty line; or

(iii)
that is in the highest quartile of local educational agencies in the State, based on student poverty.

(G)
The term historically underrepresented student means-

(i)
a student, or prospective student, at an institution of higher education who is at risk of educational failure or otherwise in need of special assistance and support; and

(ii)
may include an adult learner, working student, part-time student, student from a low-income background, student of color, Native youth, single parent (including a single pregnant woman), student who is a homeless child or youth, youth who is in, or has aged out of, the foster care system, first-generation college student, and student with a disability.

(H)
The term student subgroup means-

(i)
economically disadvantaged students;

(ii)
students from major racial and ethnic groups;

(iii)
children with disabilities, as defined in section 602 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act; and

(iv)
English learners, as defined in section 8101 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

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H.R. 3268 (116th): Go to High School, Go to College Act of 2019

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I 116th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 3268 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES A BILL 2. (k) (1) For the award years beginning on July 1, 2020, and ending on June 30, 2026, the Secretary shall carry out a pilot program to award College in High School Federal Pell Grants to eligible students to support enrollment in, and completion of, postsecondary courses offered through a dual or concurrent enrollment program or an early college high school.

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Slide 9 - Illinois Dual Credit Quality Act

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Slide 9 - Illinois Dual Credit Quality Act

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Source of Law: State Statutory Law

Citation: Illinois Dual Credit Quality Act (110 ILCS 27/1 et seq.)

Link: https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=3117&ChapterID=18

Law and Requirements:

Overarching law that regulates the state of Illinois' Dual Credit Program

First enacted in 2010, amended with effective dates in 2019, 2021, and 2023

Primary components

Requires assurance from the community college that dual credit courses are equivalent in content, delivery, and rigor to the equivalent course taught at the college

Requires annual reviews by the college to maintain consistency

Any General Education Core Curriculum coursework must be recognized and transferable to all public institutions in Illinois

The Illinois Community College Board is responsible for oversight of dual credit programs between high schools and community colleges; Board of Higher Education is responsible for oversight on all other programs

Instructors for general courses must have a master's degree in the content area, or any master's degree with 18 graduate credit hours of coursework in the discipline

CTE instructors must have 2,000 hours of work experience and the appropriate credential for the field

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Illinois Compiled Statutes Table of Contents

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Slide 10 - Rend Lake College Dual Credit Policy

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Slide 10 - Rend Lake College Dual Credit Policy

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Citation: Rend Lake College. (2020). Policy Manual. Ina, IL: Author.

Link: https://www.rlc.edu/about-rlc/policy-manual/file/1538-policy-manual

Description: Rend Lake College's policy requires that dual credit seeking students be at least of junior standing and meet all course prerequisites or placement testing requirements. Students can also only apply up to 49 percent of dual credit hours provided at a secondary institution toward a degree (p. 153). These policies are in place to ensure student preparedness for actual postsecondary education.

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Policy Manual - Policy-Manual - Rend Lake College

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Rend Lake College - The Home of the Warriors since 1967. College classes at an affordable cost.

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Citation: Council for the Advancement of Standards. (2006). CAS professional standards for higher education (6th Ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Link: https://www.naspa.org/images/uploads/main/CASethicsstatement.pdf

Specific Item:
Principle VI - Veracity: "We communicate all relevant facts and information while respecting privacy and confidentiality."

This principle is specifically important while working with dual credit students because a majority of them have little to no working knowledge of how their ideal academic plan should be laid out. Because of this, it is important to be transparent with all information necessary to the student, but it is also important that the information in the conversation remains private between advisor and student.

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There are two different perspectives I have on this.

As an academic advisor, by looking into the laws and guidelines currently active on the topic, it is a lot clearer now on how a lot of our students come in with about a semester or more worth of college classes already completed. However, especially in our district, there is a large discrepancy between the high end and low end of how many credits students tend to bring in depending on what high school the student graduates from. With the rising standards and qualifications of who can teach these courses, it is becoming increasingly difficult for lower-income schools to be able to hire qualified teachers who can teach dual credit courses, which leads to furthering the socio-economic gap mentioned earlier. While any student can take dual enrollment classes, although the cost is lowered, it still may serve as a barrier compared to the more plentiful tuition-free dual credit classes our more populous high schools have.

From a student perspective, I greatly wish that dual credit classes were more prevalent when I was in high school. Despite attending a large high school, the only dual credit courses we had were calculus and human anatomy. Being able to build a connection with college affairs personnel while still in high school would have benefitted myself much more than hoping to pass an AP exam ever did.

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Slide 13 - Recommendations/Best Practices for Working with Dual Credit Students

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Slide 13 - Recommendations/Best Practices for Working with Dual Credit Students

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Always be completely transparent when advising high school students, even if their postsecondary plans lead elsewhere.

Be cautious in regard to student records. When in doubt, ask and double check.

If a student is not suitably prepared for college-level classes, be honest about it. Do not let them wreck their confidence.

Eliminate as many barriers to dual credit entry as possible.

Always keep documentation on student interactions, especially with underage students.

Overexplain everything, assume you are working with a blank slate every time

Be accessible as an option for assistance

Do everything in the student's best interest, even if it is not the most desirable plan