With dual enrollment, high schoolers can be
introduced to college-level material to fulfill course expectations while
living at home and with a class load paced to that student’s ability.
While many writers describe the difficulties facing contemporary
higher education, middle-class parents of college-bound children can be
overwhelmed at the sheer number of choices offered by confusing
propaganda. This becomes even more of a problem for homeschooling
families. Whatever homeschooled children learned lacks the parchment from a
recognized institution.
What to do?
Well, according to law professors from Emory, Georgetown,
and Harvard, you
shouldn’t be homeschooling in the first place. But truly, there isn’t any
one-size-fits-all panacea, no “Lose weight on an ice-cream diet while watching
video game tournaments on YouTube!” solution. All I can do is present what our
family did. Your mileage may vary. Ours did.
My wife and
I have six children spanning ages from 18 to 30 years—three of each cis-gendered
non-trans binary type in a haphazard order (we changed their diapers, so trust
me). We homeschooled all of them, although two attended a private institution
for a year. None saw the inside of a public school until they took the PSAT or
SAT. We chose that route partly out of a desire to provide religious
instruction, albeit leavened with Calvin and Hobbes comics
and dinosaur documentaries.
There were
other reasons too. When Joy Pullmann describes the grade-school indoctrination
taking place in Illinois, there’s
little doubt that it’s not happening in other states.
Only the eldest completed high school through our chosen
denominational program and subsequently enrolled in the local community college
at age 19. Upon our discovering the dual enrollment option, our second began
classes there at 17.
What is
“dual enrollment”? Dual enrollment denotes an agreement with an academic
institution to permit high school students to take college-level classes. This
should be distinguished from “concurrent enrollment,” in which “college”
classes are taught in high school. How should that be distinguished from
“advanced placement” (or AP) classes? Beats me. Leftist educators complain about
dual enrollment, however, as do the politically correct,
so that should tell you all you need to know about its merits.
Typically, dual enrollment is accommodated through community
colleges, which offer two-year programs resulting in an associate degree for
completing a suite of freshman and sophomore coursework. Such colleges usually
accept students on a non-competitive basis, although passing entrance
examinations may be needed to attend classes.
They also typically do without many of the amenities (and
expenses) found at universities and four-year institutions such as dormitories,
Greek life, varsity teams, cafeterias, and manicured lawns. Instead, they
employ faculty who focus on teaching.
All states
permit dual enrollment, at least officially.
Unfortunately, as John Fink illustrates with
data from the Community College Research Center, the availability of dual
enrollment options varies heavily across the nation. States with dual
enrollment comprising at least a quarter of community college students as of
2010 include Kentucky, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, and Texas.
The states with less than 5 percent are Georgia, Hawaii, South Dakota,
Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.
Unless one attends a prestigious academy, the last several years
of high school are, in my humble opinion, an unnecessary waste of time. But at
least at the end of this ordeal, one receives a diploma. For homeschoolers,
this trap possesses an additional obstacle to joining society, as their studies
have no recognized pedigree. Thus, for their academic accomplishments to be
recognized, homeschooled children need some form of educational credential—much
like Scarecrow in “Wizard of Oz” desired his “thinkology” certificate.
While admittedly
college has become an elaborate shell game,
jeopardizing career potentials of our children by relying solely on their
talents and efforts became disconcerting for
us.
Meantime, our third child started attending the local community
college at age 16; our fourth also at 16, our fifth at 14, and our youngest at
13 (a month before turning 14). For the youngest two, we respectively used PSAT
and Iowa Test of Educational Development (ITED) scores to demonstrate academic
readiness. Since then, all completed their associate degrees—three of them
before their 18th birthdays—and were subsequently accepted to in-state
universities.
Of these, five have since graduated with bachelor’s degrees. Four
found employment, and one continues with graduate studies. Perhaps these
achievements seem modest, but our children did accomplish them. To enhance
their marketability, they also pursued ancillary skills, such as organ
accompaniment, emergency medicine, arc welding, data analysis coding, and
drywall manufacturing. The four-year degree might indeed be necessary, but
don’t assume it’s sufficient.
Admittedly, our kids could have transferred to four-year
institutions without completing their associate degrees, as many students do.
But absent a diploma from an established high school, their vulnerability to
academic interruption presented greater risk than my wife and I were
comfortable with. So, to ensure all of them would possess an independently
established credential, we insisted on each completing his or her associate
degree at the local community college before either moving on to a university
or entering the labor market.
Choosing
dual enrollment involves accepting particular constraints. Ivy League colleges
will sniff at any such attendees, but then again, nobody you know will be accepted either.
More practically, transferring credits to out-of-state or private institutes
may be more challenging than with an in-state college. Not everyone can pull
off the impressive accomplishment of
plowing through a bachelor’s program in less than three years. This is
especially true for STEM majors—partly due to the intensive content, but also
due to the prerequisite laboratory hours needed for completion.
Gradually, the advantages of dual enrollment appear to have caught
on. When our eldest children started, the student body at the local community
college seemed composed of young adults in their twenties or so. However, as
time went on, the average student age drifted younger, suggesting that other
local families had begun taking advantage of this opportunity.
With dual enrollment, high schoolers can be introduced to
college-level material to fulfill course expectations while living at home and
with a class load paced to that student’s ability. Furthermore, dual enrollers
can take time off to work or reduce their course load while still graduating
before their peers.
Worth noting is the option we didn’t investigate: the College
Level Examination Program (CLEP) administered by College Board. These
standardized tests are accepted by some colleges for course credit. By
demonstrating proficiency, students can bypass some undergraduate coursework,
thereby reducing both cost and time. It may also be an avenue to consider. But
for us, the dual enrollment strategy turned out well.
Dual enrollment is not for everybody. But you might not want to
casually dismiss the possibility.
G. W.
Thielman has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering. He is currently
employed as a patent attorney, and lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia. His
opinions are his own.
