Earning College Credit in High School

If you’re a North Carolina resident, an opportunity to save a lot of money on higher education is staring you right in the face. The State of North Carolina provides two paths for high-school students to earn college credit tuition-free, while still enrolled in a public high school. These paths represent the evolution of efforts to keep students focused on higher education while still in secondary school. They’re two of the three components of the NC Department of Public Instruction’s Career and College Promise Program (CCP). (More on the third path, Career and Technical Education, in another blog post.)

The path that you’ve probably heard about, early college, requires students to attend one of the specially designated WCPSS “academies,” but there’s another path, too: dual enrollment. Starting with legislation passed in 2011, the state now allows high-school students to earn free college credit from any NC public high school. There’s an overview of CCP on the NC Community Colleges website.

Advanced Placement

The old tried-and-true way to earn college credit while still in high school is by taking Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Wake high schools offer many opportunities to take AP classes in a wide range of subjects, and students who score a 4 or higher (of a possible 5) on the standardized exam that’s offered in May are typically granted one course credit when they enroll in college. Colleges and universities have different policies, and some will award credit for a score of 3 on the exam.

AP is a great way to prepare for college, beef up a college application, take challenging classes, and grow intellectually. But AP has a couple of limitations for college-bound students. The College Board charges a hefty fee to take each test, and students who don’t earn college credit this way do not receive a refund. But Career and College Promise offers ways to earn college credit that are free of charge. Plus, AP classes are a scattershot method of earning college credit. They’re a great way to select a college major, but not a great way to start a degree program. By contrast, CCP sets students on a specially designed academic path to a two-year or four-year college degree.

Early College Schools

The first path to college through CCP is officially known as the Cooperative Innovative High School Program (CIHSP), but the more familiar term for this program is “Early College.” CIHS academies are located on or near college campuses, and their enrollment is capped at 100 students per grade. As they work toward a high-school diploma, early-college students can either work toward or complete an Associate’s Degree or a certification program, or they can earn up to two years of college credit while still completing high school in five years.

Different types of early-college innovative public schools are on offer in NC; some are focused on career and technical training (CTE), while others are more focused on helping students earn college credit. They’re called “innovative” in part because they have a lot more leeway to create curricula than a traditional public school has. State law lets them set curriculum standards in cooperation with the local school board and their own boards of trustees. But they all require a special application, which in Wake County must be submitted about two months before applications to magnet programs are due.

In Wake County, rising eighth-graders and older can apply to one of the following CIHS schools in the fall, for enrollment the following August:

And the following two early-college programs are integrated into single-sex academies that include grades 6 – 12 and one year of college (“grade 13”):

Most of the Wake early-college programs are affiliated with Wake Technical Community College; however, Wake STEM is affiliated with NC State, and Wake Young Men’s and Wake Young Women’s are affiliated with St. Augustine’s University. They all run on a slightly different calendar from the rest of WCPSS high schools.

The application period for these programs is typically Oct. 15 – Dec. 1, but it’s subject to change slightly. Just keep in mind that WCPSS enables students to submit applications for CIHS schools and also to apply in January for magnet and year-round schools. Applications for CIHS/early college are considered first. Students whose CIHS applications are accepted will therefore have their magnet applications discarded. And February 14 is the notification day for magnet, year-round, and early college or leadership academies.

The academic performance of students at Wake’s early-college schools has been impressive, with high graduation rates and high scores in the “state report card” categories. Wake Early College of Health and Science had far and away the highest growth index of these schools in the 2016-17 school year at 6.35, which is among the highest in the county, and a school performance grade (SPG) of A. In addition, Wake Young Women’s had the highest SPG possible (A+NG), while Wake STEM Early College also earned an A.

Dual Enrollment

The second path to college through WCPSS, dual enrollment, provides a way for students who are enrolled in a “normal” high school to earn free college credits. The “dual” part means that, per NCDPI’s structured agreement with NC community colleges and UNC system universities, certain courses have CCP “dual credit allowances.” These courses have been selected for the Universal General Education Transfer Component (UGETC) of the state’s education agreement with community colleges, enabled by the 2011 Career and College Promise legislation.  According to the WCPSS website, “UGETC courses will transfer for equivalency credit from NC Community Colleges to UNC Institutions. Students who enroll in and pass these college courses also will receive high school course credit.” Sounds like a really good deal!

Students who complete a class with a dual credit allowance also receive the same weighted credit as students who take AP courses. So an A in a dual-credit class contributes a 5.0 toward the GPA, in addition to earning a free, transferable college credit and credit toward the high-school diploma!

Not all courses with a career or technical focus will qualify for a weighted credit—school guidance counselors are key here. The real value seems to be in taking classes within a designated “College Transfer pathway” for both high school and college credit. Find more information here.

CCP dual-enrollment options include the following courses of study, designed to be Associate’s Degree programs:

  • Associate in Arts (liberal arts)
  • Associate in Sciences (STEM)
  • Associate in Engineering (STEM)
  • Associate Degree in Nursing
  • Associate in Fine Arts in Visual Arts

Students who seek a four-year college degree will be able to enroll in a Bachelor’s degree program after they complete their Associate’s program. Or they can transfer to a Bachelor’s degree program at a four-year college or university without completing the Associate’s Degree, transferring any credits that they have earned during dual enrollment. As part of the agreement among UNC system universities and community colleges in developing the transfer curricula, credits earned with a “C” grade or higher will earn credit at a UNC school, although individual universities can determine whether a course will count as general education, pre-major, or elective credit.