[A]s more high school students take advantage of a relatively new program to get into college classes, low-income students are participating at a rate well below their peers with more means.
That was one finding as the Agency of Education tracked students in the first two years of a program called dual enrollment. It provides state vouchers to high school juniors and seniors to take two college credit-bearing courses.
The agency saw several encouraging results. Participation almost doubled in the first two years, and more low-income students and special education students took part. But those whose first language isn’t English are lagging behind.
Vermont has one of the highest high school graduation rates in the country. To get students on track to continue on to postsecondary education, in 2013 lawmakers passed Act 77, also known as the Flexible Pathways law.
One of those pathways is dual enrollment. In fiscal year 2014 a total of 1,292 high school students used the vouchers to take college level classes. The next year the number rose to 2,165.
In fiscal 2014, 353 students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch, an indicator of poverty, took part; the next year this number grew to 542. Forty-three special education students participated in fiscal 2014, and 76 the next year. But when it comes to students called English language learners, the numbers dropped from 86 in 2014 to 57 in the next fiscal year.
Forty-two percent of Vermont students qualify for free and reduced-price lunch. Barely 19 percent of them go on to college within three years of graduating from high school, according to the agency.
The hope was that the dual enrollment program would expose more students to higher education by getting them onto college campuses and getting them excited, according to Heather Bouchey, deputy education secretary.
That is why it is disappointing to some lawmakers that students living in poverty aren’t taking part of dual enrollment at the same pace as their more advantaged peers.
“The percent of these students that go into dual enrollment is only about a quarter at most,” Bouchey told lawmakers on the House Education Committee on Thursday.
Rep. Tim Jerman, D-Essex Junction, said getting low-income students involved is critical. He was concerned that they be tracked, so when dual enrollment starts showing success at getting students into college there will be a way to know how much impact it is having for low-income students. “We have to know that it is not kids who would have gone to college anyway,” he said.
Bouchey described this an “entitlement program for all students” and said that when the question of equity is raised, the response is that particular students shouldn’t be targeted for funding. “What are we going to do, then? It is not going to magically happen if we don’t attend to it,” Bouchey said, then added, “The students who come from families more savvy are going to take advantage of (the vouchers).”
Education Chair David Sharpe, D-Bristol, agreed, saying legislators knew when considering Act 77 that children of means would use the vouchers and find it to be a great program. “But it is not such a great program for lots of other kids,” he said. “Are we addressing the problems or are we just facilitating money for kids who go to college anyway? Both might be valuable goals, but they are different goals.”
The lower numbers could in part be attributed to the fact that students in high school are asked to self-report whether they qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, according to Bouchey, who said many choose not to claim the status.
“It becomes much harder to track … because a lot of high school students refuse to do the paperwork. They don’t want to be stigmatized that way,” Bouchey said.
Because of these limitations, researchers would like to track students based on whether their parents went on to postsecondary education. But there are some limitations with this data as well.
Bouchey also reported that more female students have been taking part in the program: 844 in fiscal 2014 and 1,371 the next year. For those same years, male student participation was 448 and 750.
The agency would like to expand the data it collects on dual enrollment to include student performance (grades); college enrollment rates compared with students who don’t participate in dual enrollment; and college retention and completion rates for dual enrollment. This information would help make clear if all Vermont students have access to dual enrollment and what kind of impact the policy is making, according to the agency’s report.
The report found that more high schools, colleges and universities are involved in the dual enrollment program and are offering “potentially richer and more powerful college credit-bearing learning experiences to students” at the same time that significantly more students are using the vouchers.
Another aspect of Act 77 allows high school seniors to take advantage of early college and spend an entire year studying at any college that has agreed to participate and to accept the tuition normally paid to the Community College of Vermont.
Bouchey shared some preliminary numbers for early college that show that in the fall semester of 2014, 92 students participated and in the spring there were 89. So far, 121 students are participating this academic year. The schools that accept students for early college include Burlington College, Goddard College in Plainfield, Norwich University in Northfield, Castleton State College, Johnson State College, Lyndon State College and the Community College of Vermont.
