Thanks to cost-saving measures, Fort Bend ISD is seeing a greater interest in dual credit classes for high school students. Program participation increased by nearly 186 percent in the 2016-17 school year compared to 2015-16, district staff said in March.


Dual credit is a way for high school students to simultaneously earn high school and college credits by taking a postsecondary-level class rather than a regular high school class. The increased enrollment was largely attributed to Houston Community College’s decision to waive course fees for students in its dual credit courses last year.


HCC previously charged a $216 fee per course for students who lived outside HCC’s taxing district.  Catherine O’Brien, HCC associate vice chancellor of college readiness, said the community college made the change because of its mission as an “open access” institution.


When HCC’s board of trustees approved the move in January 2016, the college announced it intended to grow the number of students taking classes at the institution. HCC said about 40 percent of students who participated in dual credit courses at HCC continued their studies at the school.


“We want to see students getting on a [postsecondary education] pathway as early as possible,” she said. “Students are more likely to finish college the earlier they start it.”


O’Brien also said the passage of House Bill 505 in 2015, which allowed all high school students to take dual credit classes, regardless of their grade level, and eliminated the limit on the number of courses students can take, helped boost the increase in participation.


Through HCC, a FBISD student can earn up to 60 credit hours—enough for an associate degree—by the time they graduate high school. At Texas State Technical College in Rosenberg, students pay a flat $50 fee for all dual credit classes and textbooks and can earn up to 10 credit hours, according to Kori Bowen, interim director of dual enrollment.


Normally, it would cost a FBISD student $4,062-$8,382 for 60 credit hours at HCC or $1,390-$1,830 for 10 credit hours at TSTC.


Meanwhile, the U.S. is dealing with a national outstanding student loan debt crisis. National student loan debt reached $1.31 trillion at the end of 2016, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.


Texas ranks 36th highest in the country for student loan debt from four-year colleges, with the average debt of a student in the state being $27,324, according to the Institute for College Access and Success. Cost savings and career exploration were some of the factors that O’Brien, Bowen and Steven Shiels, FBISD director of counseling and post secondary readiness, said likely motivate students and their parents to consider registering for dual credit.


Through HCC, FBISD offers dual credit in English, math, history, government, economics, psychology and sociology, firefighting, automotive technology and business information management. Shiels said English composition and U.S. history are some of the most popular dual credit classes for students in the school district.


Dual credit rate soars in Fort Bend ISDThe difficulty of dual credit courses is similar to that of an Advance Placement course and grades can be factored into a student’s college GPA if they attend the same institution, Shiels said. Students may withdraw from the course if desired.


FBISD uses a mixture of school district and HCC faculty to teach its dual credit classes, but instructors must meet the school’s certification requirements and the classes are taught on FBISD campuses, O’Brien said.


FBISD also offers dual credit courses in automotive technology through TSTC. The college has 60 FBISD students enrolled for dual credit currently, but the college is working with the school district to offer more programs, particularly with FBISD’s future career and technical center scheduled to open in the fall 2018 Bowen said.