The Legislature made good on Gov. Peter Shumlin’s vision for expanding college opportunities for Vermont high school students.
S.130 does exactly what Shumlin proposed during his inaugural speech — it doubles the funding for dual enrollment, which allows juniors and seniors to take college courses while in high school, and it lays the foundation for expanding early college programs, which allow students to simultaneously complete their senior year of high school and their first year of college.
Currently, eligible 11th- and 12th-graders can take one college course at the University of Vermont, the Vermont State Colleges, or seven private colleges at public expense. During the 2011-2012 school year, the state gave out 584 course vouchers for students participating in dual enrollment programs.
Under the new proposal, students could take two courses, fully funded, either at the college or onsite at the high school. To pay for it, the Legislature increased the allocation for the program — the money is drawn from the Next Generation Fund — from $400,000 to $800,000 in the 2014 budget.
The state will pay 100 percent of tuition for FY 2014 and FY 2015; after that it will share the cost with the student’s high school.
Vermont Academy of Science and Technology (VAST), the state’s only early college program, serves about 40 students each year. Eighty-seven percent of the base education amount is used to pay for students’ enrollment in this program. S.130 authorizes the Secretary of Education to pay this same rate to UVM, Vermont State Colleges or approved private colleges if these institutions start early college programs.
Sen. Phil Baruth, D-Chittenden, who helped mark up the bill as a member of the Senate Education Committee, said he doesn’t anticipate a dramatic upsurge in participation numbers. “It’s very small potatoes in terms of the number of students who participate. There is not going to be a huge rush to these programs because they require students be very capable and mature in terms of the course loads they can handle.”
S.130 also requires schools to develop “personalized learning plans” for students in seventh-grade and above. The secretary will publish “guiding principles” by Jan. 20, 2014, and the plans will be implemented on a rolling basis starting in 2015.
