There are 850 high-schoolers attending the University of Minnesota alone, and 6,200 others in colleges statewide. And it looks as if many more motivated high-schoolers may be headed to college part time in coming years, experts say. Driving them is frustration with schools that offer few enrichment programs. How to best serve such students is the subject of a US Department of Education study due out this fall. But in the interim, many say college can keep these students engaged.
Gifted students can find the more-challenging classes they crave.
Other young people can locate sought-after specialized fare. Still others, with an eye to saving money, will get a jump-start on college with credits that are often bankrolled by state funds. And just as young students are pursuing more options, colleges are rolling out the welcome mat. The result is a flowering of programs geared for the estimated 3 million gifted or talented students that make up 5 percent of the K-12 population. The criteria for admission to such programs are left to the high school and college.