Lubbers: Dual Credit Yielding ‘Very Strong’ ROI
(Graph courtesy of the Indiana Commission for Higher Education)
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA new study from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education shows the number of Indiana students receiving college credit in high school has risen higher than ever before. Higher Education Commissioner Teresa Lubbers says the results demonstrate a positive return on investment for Hoosiers. In 2015, 55 percent of high school students in the state earned dual credit, compared to 39 percent three years earlier.
In an interview with Inside INdiana Business, Lubbers said the increases suggest wide-ranging benefits. "We’ve now reached a point where more than half of students are taking dual credit in high school. And that when they do so, they are more likely to go to college, more likely to complete college and they’re more likely to complete college on time or graduate earlier. So this (report) is a part of our on-going commitment to the quality and financial savings associated with dual credit,"
Other key figures from the report include:
- Of the 55 percent who earned dual credits, 56 percent received credit for liberal arts courses and 49 percent for career and technical education
- 40 percent earned at least a semester’s-worth of credit
- 10 percent earned at least two semester’s-worth of credit
- 70 percent of dual credit-earning students went to college, compared to 50 percent without dual credit or Advanced Placement credit — 80 percent of which stayed in college beyond their freshman year
- 45 percent who pursued a bachelor’s degree in college after earning dual credit graduated on-time and were twice as likely to graduate at least a semester early, compared to students who didn’t receive dual credit in high school
- Associate degree seekers with dual credit from high school were around three times as likely to graduate on time and six times as likely to graduate early than peers without college credit from their high school years
Lubbers says, more and more, the lines between high school and college are blurring, especially as college and career readiness comes more to the forefront. She says the minimum measure of readiness is that students don’t need remediation once they hit the post-secondary level, "but in a much more encouraging way, we measure it that if you have dual credit and you have some college credit when you graduate from high school, it sends a signal to you that you are college material, that you are starting with the benefit of having some college credits, which saves you potentially time and money." She says the numbers exceeded expectations and show state leaders that investing in dual-credit programs has a "very strong return on investment."
You can connect to the full report by clicking here.