Dual Enrollment in Florida

OK here it is! Dual Enrollment or sometimes called Early College is when a high school student attends college classes and earns both high school and college credit. Here in Florida, the college classes are free for Dual Enrolled students. For private school and home schooled students books are NOT covered although public school students are covered for books. My tax dollars at work.

The state of Florida has guidelines regarding dual enrollment but each college can set rules regarding number of classes per semester, the types of classes and also when the dual enrollment student is allowed to register. With budget cuts at all of the community colleges, a very good question to ask is, "when does the dual enrolled student get to register for classes?" For the community college that allows dual enrollment students to register AFTER the other students, well, it will surely mean that many students will not get a class, or at least the class of their choice.

There are also requirements regarding age, test scores and overall GPA, unweighted. Please talk to the dual enrollment office of your local community college.

Why not AP classes? I know that MANY of the high schools are all about the AP classes. Frankly, MOST students do not pass the required AP test to receive AP credit. BUT the school receives the MONEY for having these students in the class. Your student can get an A in the AP class but if he does not pass the AP test, then he will not get the college credits. Another aspect of the AP debacle that had me very concerned as the dual enrollment advisor was that sometimes two of the AP classes will give the student the same college credit. For example, if your student takes AP English Language and passes the AP test with a 3, he will receive the credits for ENC 1101 (remember, this is a Florida course number). If your student takes AP English Literature the following year and also receives a 3 on the AP test, he will receive the credits for, ENC 1101. Which he already has from the previous year. MOST students and parents do NOT know this! What a waste of time and resources! In ONE year (two semesters) your student can take ENC 1101 and then ENC 1102 at the community college and receive the college credits for both.

Here in Florida the universities MUST weigh AP classes and Dual Enrollment classes the same! UF can no longer weigh DE classes the same as honors while AP classes are weighed higher. Nope. Not anymore! For a high school GPA, AP and Dual Enrollment classes are weighed the same!

Please contact your local community college dual enrollment office for the details.

Allow me to introduce myself....

My name is Karen and I live in Central Florida. Yes, land of Mickey and Minnie! My kids are actually grown but I still keep in touch with what is happening with home education. I have started a private school for home schoolers here in Florida which is also known as an "umbrella school."

Up until around Thanksgiving, I worked at the local community college in Central Florida as the Dual Enrollment Academic Advisor. Dual Enrollment, or early college, is extremely popular in Florida since the tuition is totally FREE for basically two years of college classes. A student can take one class or six classes per semester, at my particular community college, and again, the tuition is free. Dual Enrollment starts at the age of 16 and ends at 18 for home education students who are registered with the county.

While advising students about their high school and college classes I noticed that many students and parents, home schooled, private schooled or public schooled, needed more information about college than "which classes do you want to take" and "what is your major."I ended up spending too much time with each family, much to the chagrin of my boss, but I felt that I could not give only partial information. These parents needed my help so I decided to start a private school to help them. I am also in the process of setting up discussions about college with various home school support groups in my area.

My kids are 24 and 21 and doing great! My 24 year old daughter graduated from Florida State University with two BS degrees and is now married. My son, 21, is currently a senior at the University of Central Florida majoring in economics.

We were total unschoolers during our time home schooling. Sure I had some nail-biting moments, but I can see now that it worked!