Caught between the bell schedule of high school and the digital deadlines of college professors, dual enrollment students face the demand of college courses in their high school days, but all for the goal of holding an associate degree as early as 18 years of age.
American River College’s dual enrollment program offers high schoolers a chance to take college classes and accrue college credits before they’ve finished earning their high school diploma. The program serves several local school districts in the Sacramento area, including Twin Rivers Unified School District, Natomas Unified School District, San Juan Unified School District and a collection of charter schools according to Tiffany Mpagazi, ARC’s dual enrollment director.
The dual enrollment program was built upon Los Rios’ advanced education program and renamed in summer of 2023. The program, which has been running since 2019, offers two branches for students to pursue: College and Career Access Pathways or “C-Cap” for underserved or underrepresented communities or those considered not-traditionally college bound as well as an option for students as young as 14 to participate in dual enrollment to pursue higher education early, according to Mpagazi.
Whichever path students take, there’s a promise of college credits and the potential to get a college degree at the same time as a high school degree. With support on ARC’s campus and at participating high schools such as Rio Americano, Choices Charter and Natomas, it’s a program highly valued by those who participate in it and help run it.
“The C-Cap program helps students who never saw themselves as potential college students, it gives them confidence to pursue that opportunity,” Mpagazi said.
San Juan Unified reported that it had only 40-50 students enrolled a few years ago and now has 1600 students enrolled in the program, according to Tracie Locke, the lead counselor of San Juan Unified School District.
As a relatively new program, it still suffers from its own share of hurdles and need for “continuous improvement,” as Locke said. This can include professors assigned late to classes, resulting in books to be assigned late for high schools to order, as well as technological issues with a largely asynchronous platform for online learning.
These issues can be compounded by some students having trouble accessing reliable Wi-Fi, progressing through content in their classes when they don’t receive access codes for classes in time or struggling to navigate the unfamiliar Canvas platform, as high schools often use Google Classroom instead.
Locke added that communication with professors can come late or inconsistently.
“There’s a lot of moving parts,” Mpagazi answered with a small laugh. “Assigning professors from fall to spring is a very different process than assigning them from spring to fall. And for some professors,” she said, “it’s still a new and growing process for them as well.”
To try and combat the issue of technology, Wi-Fi and communication, ARC is experimenting with implementing in-person classes at some campuses. While a few have the arrangement of students leaving their high school early to come to ARC’s campus – as in the case of the trade classes – on the Aspire Charter school campus, some professors are coming to the high schools directly.
“We’ve had great engagement from students who seem to appreciate the structure and hands-on learning that in-person classes can offer,” said Chongphouh Xiong, the college and career pathways manager at Aspire Charter.
Additional information about ARC’s dual enrollment program can be found on their website.
