Early-college programs offer welcome alternatives for the right students

2/21/2008

The Columbus Dispatch

Skipping some of high school to take college courses isn’t for every teenager, and Gov. Ted Strickland’s proposed Seniors to Sophomores initiative won’t change that. But for those who are ready, the program could provide a higher-ed head start, as well as a golden financial opportunity.

Look no further than the Post-Secondary Enrollment Options program, in existence for nearly two decades, to see how greatly some students can benefit from the chance to blend high school with college or get an early, tuition-free start at college, full time.

While relatively few Ohio students are enrolled in the program, those who are have saved thousands of dollars via tuition-free college credits. Just as important, it has rekindled enthusiasm for learning in some students who found high school uninspiring or unchallenging.

Critics of Strickland’s proposal, announced in his recent State of the State address, worry that it devalues the senior year of high school by suggesting that students can go directly to college work after finishing their junior year.

That concern is overblown, considering that the Seniors to Sophomores program hardly would leave 12{+t}{+h}-grade classrooms empty.

Students heavily involved in sports, performing arts and other social and extracurricular activities in high school likely would have a hard time fitting those things in with time away at a college campus. Many other 16- and 17-year-olds aren’t ready to do college-level work.

Seventeen-year-old Chris Dodd, though, was ready as a junior. A preliminary stab at Philosophy 101 through the Post-Secondary Enrollment Options program at Ohio University’s Lancaster branch campus confirmed his interest, and since then he has taken 16 more courses. If Seniors to Sophomores becomes a reality, the current program will be incorporated into it.

Dodd is technically a senior at Pickerington North High School, but he has spent most of the past two school years on the OU-Lancaster campus. He’ll start college next fall with two years’ worth of coursework out of the way. He’s not the prom type and doesn’t miss high school much.

Giving students like him the option of starting college early is just one more healthy manifestation of the broad movement toward more choice in public schooling — a movement that includes charter schools, vouchers, home schooling, vocational school and advanced-placement courses.

While the traditional, four-year high-school experience, replete with Friday night football games and senior prom, always will be a cherished rite of passage for many teens, it never was ideal for everyone.

Students will benefit from more alternatives.