Changes to the dual enrollment agreements between area colleges and local school districts are nearly complete.
Beginning this month, school districts across Florida will pay colleges $71.98 for every credit hour earned by students on a collegiate campus. Costs for dual enrollment classes offered at the high schools will not change.
“In the past the colleges have had to bear the expense of educating these students and the cost of instruction on our own,” said Ty Handy, the president of Northwest Florida State College. “Now it’s going to be a shared situation in which the schools are paying the minimum tuition.”
When news of the change first reached school districts, local officials were uncertain about how the program would look when school started in August.
“Initially, we talked about a lot of ways to reduce dual enrollment and we found out a lot of those ways weren’t legal,” said Bill Emerson, the assistant superintendent of Santa Rosa County schools.
He said officials considered changing eligibility requirements, but all that is controlled by the state.
Rather than focus on what they can’t change, districts are increasingly turning their attention to teachers, who can be certified by area colleges to teach dual enrollment courses.
“We’ve probably doubled the number,” said Alexis Tibbetts, who oversees dual enrollment for Walton County schools.
Read the dual enrollment agreement between NWFSC and Walton County. >>
Neighboring Okaloosa County won’t see much of a jump this year in the number of dual enrollment courses offered at high schools, but that will likely change in the future, according to Marcus Chambers, the district’s assistant superintendent of instruction and curriculum.
Read the dual enrollment agreement between NWFSC and Okaloosa County. >>
Okaloosa and Walton, which work with NWF State for dual enrollment offerings, will get a break on textbook costs for this year as they make the surprise adjustment.
The college has agreed to pay the districts a $100 stipend for each student enrolled in a course.
“We are appreciative that Northwest Florida State College is working with us in light of this new legislation,” Chambers said.
Pensacola State College, which oversees dual enrollment courses for Santa Rosa County schools, also has vowed to help the district financially the first year, Emerson said.
Dual enrollment agreements, which have existed for more than two decades in Florida, were created to allow students the opportunity to earn college credit in high school.
When the program began, colleges provided funding to defer the costs for enrolling the high school students. But funding didn’t follow growth, according to Ed Meadows, president of Pensacola State College.
For example, when PSC started the program, it had about 150 students from Santa Rosa and Escambia counties enrolled. Last year it had 1,400 and spent about $3 million on dual enrollment, he said.
Colleges across the state reported similar issues.
“We couldn’t afford it as a system,” Meadows said.
So in the spring, Florida legislators changed the law to shift some of the financial responsibility to the school districts, and articulation agreements had to be adjusted.
For at least the next year, students shouldn’t notice much of a difference in the program and access for qualified students won’t change. It will just be a bit of a learning curve for colleges and school districts.
“It is a good deal for students to be able to access to dual enrollment courses, so there’s a noble cause here,” Handy said. “It’s just trying to work out how we’re going to finance this thing.”
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Katie Tammen at 850-315-4440 or ktammen@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @KatieTnwfdn.