College credit for high school students

When it comes to the path toward graduation and beyond, Waseca high school students have options. Dr. Jason Miller, WJSH principal and Dr. Brooke McGuire, Director of Teaching and Learning, presented those options to the school board at their workshop last Thursday evening. Miller explained to the board how high school students have three avenues to earning college credit: Advanced Placement (AP) courses, Post-Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO), or Concurrent Enrollment/College In the School (CE or CIS).

Miller explained that AP has become less workable recently because private colleges have been changing their acceptance rates of AP scores. He reported 43 students are currently enrolled in PSEO courses; this means the students are attending classes at various post-secondary institutions or online rather than in the Waseca school building. In  concurrent enrollment, WJSH teachers who meet certain qualifications are selected to teach college-level courses; students who take part receive credit simultaneously from the university in which the teacher is qualified and toward high school graduation. WJSHl teacher John Hanson teaches a CIS political science course through the University of Minnesota.

“In outstate Minnesota, with declining enrollment, one of the things that I have become very passionate about is trying to find ways for our students to stay on-site as much as possible: one valuable way is through concurrent enrollment.” Miller described a student who was in the process of enrolling for a PSEO English class but was told that high school teacher Marc Engesether would be teaching CE English; the student immediately altered her plans so that she could stay at Waseca.

McGuire shared financial figures for comparison purposes; PSEO at the University of Minnesota is $359.13 per credit while Concurrent Enrollment for the same institution is $145. She highlighted that Riverland Community College and MSU Mankato charge the school by the course, with no limit to the number of students who enroll. “It’s much more cost advantageous for us to go that route,” she emphasized. “We can offer multiple sections of the same course for one price.” Hudspith added that “ the bigger difference is our per-pupil revenue: when a student is taking PSEO courses, they are not part of our enrollment count for that part of the day and the state funding for that student goes to the college or the university. We end up paying for the credits and losing our revenue for that student. Concurrent enrollment students remain our students so we receive full funding for them.”

To be qualified to teach a CE course, a teacher must have a Master’s degree in the subject that they teach.  Waseca currently has CE partnerships with Riverland Community College, MSU Mankato, University of Minnesota, and South Central College. CE courses underway at the high school include algebra, statistics, physics, accounting, marketing, business law, language & literature, political science, medical terminology, basic nursing, health care core foundations, and exploring careers in education.

Another benefit of concurrent enrollment both Miller and McGuire emphasized is the ongoing support provided to students. “The students that do PSEO don’t necessarily get the support that they do at our site,“ Miller said. “We had three seniors last year who failed their PSEO class in the second semester and they had two weeks back here to make up the credit in order to graduate. They did it, but it was tough.”