The approach is called dual enrollment. Local colleges make some of their courses available to teenagers who have completed or are unchallenged by their high school's curriculum. The national demand for more-challenging high school courses and the growing numbers of college applicants have fueled a surge in interest. Margaret Terry Orr, an associate professor of education at Columbia University's Teachers College, said she began studying dual-enrollment programs at community colleges years ago when there were rarely more than 20 or 30 high school students enrolled at one school. There are no solid national figures on the growth of dual enrollment, but programs can be found everywhere, both in rural and urban areas.
Students say the rigor takes getting used to.
Two classmates in the program, Matt Ramirez and Jessi Nazarene, said that the psychology course is sometimes boring, but English instructor Edith Kennedy got high marks. Colleges enjoy the extra tuition and the access to potential applicants that the dual-enrollment classes provide. And having that many teenagers on campus can be a strain. Some high school administrators also are annoyed at losing their best students for much of the day. Most high schools in the Washington area prefer to offer their students Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate programs, college-level courses taught by high school teachers.