The population of students taking these classes – a practice known as dual enrollment – has taken off in Ohio, but an equity gap remains.
by Amy Morona November 4, 2024
Ohio has a higher percentage of high school students taking college classes than most states. But, mirroring national trends, the state’s students of color remain underrepresented.
For years, roughly 6% to 7% of Ohio’s public school students taking these have been Black — in a state where about 16 percent of the high students are Black. That’s according to state data analyzed by Signal Statewide.
White students, meanwhile, continually made up between 70% and 73% of participants, slightly higher than the total number of white high school students statewide.
This could have big, long-term implications. Researchers say those who take these classes –commonly referred to as dual enrollment – attend and complete college at higher rates than those who don’t. Completing some type of higher education can bring all kinds of benefits, including potentially making more money, being more civically engaged, and living healthier lives.
Ohio educators, including Sinclair Community College’s Chief School Partnerships Officer Liz Cicchetti, say they’re committed to figuring it out.
“We want to be able to close those equity gaps and give all students equal opportunity to education at a lower cost and a faster ability,” she said.
Dual enrollment grows in Ohio, nationwide
More than 80,160 high schoolers took part in Ohio’s dual enrollment program, known as College Credit Plus (CCP), in the 2022-23 academic year.
That’s up about 34% from 53,275 students in 2016, according to state data. These classes are free for the vast majority of students and families. Students can eventually transfer those credits to a college or even earn a degree and/or credential while still in high school.
Even though four-year and two-year colleges participate, it’s an especially big lifeline for community colleges still navigating post-pandemic enrollment drops. One national estimate finds dual enrollment has grown nearly 17% in just the past two years for that group.
That’s the case at Dayton’s Sinclair Community College. School officials said about 3,400 students enrolled a decade ago. It’s more than double that now. Only Columbus State Community College enrolled more students in the 2022-23 academic year.
Sinclair’s Cicchetti said she believes there is a “unified” goal from leaders on both the K-12 and higher education sides to see these offerings succeed. Ohio officially launched CCP in 2015.
Yet since then, state officials wrote in the most recent annual report, “underrepresented students, such as students of color and students from economically disadvantaged families, are not participating in the program at a rate comparable to their White and non-economically disadvantaged peers.”
Could expanding the pipeline of College Credit Plus teachers help?
Cicchetti thinks these equity gaps exist for a few reasons. Perhaps it could be due to teacher turnover or a lack of resources at the K-12 level for the districts serving low-income and/or students of color, she surmised.
Plus, she said, there’s a need for more high school teachers to be adequately credentialed to teach college classes.
The smallest number of participants actually attend one of Sinclair’s three campuses in-person. Most instead take classes online, followed each day by courses taught by a high school instructor.
It can be complicated to fill those roles at that level. Cicchetti said being a high school educator teaching a college class to younger students requires more advanced credentials. That, in turn, means those teachers “probably are in a more competitive [job] candidate pool,” she said.
“You have access to be employed in many places, so a high-poverty school district might not be your first choice,” she said.
Cicchetti believes expanding access to who can teach CCP in high school settings could boost that pipeline. Perhaps several districts could share full-time teachers, she said.
Long-term impacts of dual enrollment, College Credit Plus
A new national study from the Community College Research Center shows how important dual enrollment classes can be for post-high school life. Researchers followed dual enrollment students beginning in 2015 and then tracked their outcomes for the next few years.
They found that 81% of those who took dual-enrollment classes enrolled in college one year after they graduated from high school. That’s about 10% higher than students overall.
Yet while 36% of that group then went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in four years, the number dropped for others. Researchers said only 25% of Hispanic students, 28% of low-income, and 29% of Black students taking dual enrollment classes did the same.
https://signalcleveland.org/ohio-dual-enrollment-college-credit-plus/
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