High schoolers earn credit and save money taking college classes

Aliyah Ginger, a junior at City View Community High School, doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up, but she’s exploring her career options by dual enrolling in Kirkwood Community College classes, earning high school and college credit without the weight of tuition.

Ginger started a clinical experience at Hiawatha Care Center last week as a part of her Nurse Aide class. She hopes to get her Certified Nursing Assistant license as a first step toward “bigger options.”

Her mother is taking the same course, although they aren’t in the same class, Ginger said. They study together.

“I don’t know what I want to do in the future, but it’s good to start thinking about this now,” Ginger said. “I talk about being a neurosurgeon. Maybe I want to go into finance. Another course I’m thinking about taking is (Criminal Justice). I tried Early Childhood Education. I figured teaching wasn’t for me.”

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Ginger is planning to graduate a year early from high school in May 2026. “I’m ready to try something new, meet new people,” she said.

Ginger is one of more than 54,000 Iowa high school students jointly enrolled in community college credit coursework, a number that’s been steadily climbing for the last decade. The number of jointly enrolled high school students during the 2024-25 school year accounted for 46 percent of Iowa’s 119,300 total community college students.

During the 2024-25 school year alone, Kirkwood Community College’s dual enrollment partnerships saved high school students and families more than $11.5 million in tuition.

Kirkwood’s dual enrollment has grown by more than 1,000 students over the last five years from 5,103 to 6,314 students currently enrolled from Eastern Iowa K-12 schools.

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Dennis Becker, head of school at City View in Cedar Rapids, said dual enrollment is helping students like Ginger “establish the ‘why’ behind what they’re learning” by exploring career opportunities.

“I’ve taught classes where the ‘why’ is the test students have to take at the end of the unit. That’s not very good for me personally. That’s not a very good reason to do a thing. I need to know why I’m doing something, and I think we have a lot of younger people in that same position,” Becker said.

City View — which is in its third year of operations — moved to the Linn County Regional Center from the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance this year. The school opened in fall 2023 as a school students can opt into regardless of where they live within the Cedar Rapids district.

All 57 students at City View are enrolled in college courses, Becker said.

The school still is evolving, Becker said. Dual enrollment was not an original intent in the creation of the school, but it fits with the school’s goal of “helping students plan and design their own pathways on an individual basis,” he said.

“I feel like we’re a ‘tip-of-the-spear’ type experience,” Becker said.

About 700 students, or 15 percent of high school students in the Cedar Rapids Community School District, dual enrolled in Kirkwood classes during the 2024-25 school year.

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Becker hopes City View can help the Cedar Rapids district create a road map for how to encourage more students to engage in dual enrollment.

High school students take college classes at no cost

Eastern Iowa educators agree high school students dual-enrolling in community college courses have less loan debt from higher education and are able to get into the workforce and earn income sooner.

Iowa high school students can earn community college credit at no cost to their families because of supplemental weighting provided by the state’s school funding formula and the contracts that school districts and non-public schools typically arrange with local community colleges.

Becker said many high school students struggle to adjust to their college courses. City View’s current student body “didn’t know Kirkwood was going to be a major part of this,” he said.

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“What can that look like at a comprehensive high school?” Becker said. “We’re small enough we can navigate a lot of issues. We’re a trial balloon while giving students an awesome experience.”

“We owe them a level of support,” Becker said. “For sure there’s a number of students who don’t have any college graduates in their families. It’s bridging that gap for first generation college students and getting them to know this place is for you too.”

Kristy Black, executive dean at Kirkwood Community College, said there has been growing awareness of dual enrollment opportunities over the last decade with an increased focus on career-based learning opportunities in the state.

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Students and families also see the benefit of reducing the overall cost of higher education by completing some college courses while still in high school, Black said. While not all careers require a four-year degree, 80 percent of jobs require some postsecondary training, she said.

Dual enrollment isn’t exclusive to high achieving students, Black said. “You don’t have to have a 3.5 grade-point average and a 25 on your ACT. We need to continue to get in front of kids who college isn’t on their radar, so they can be better equipped to earn a sustainable, living wage as an adult.”

“When we opened that first regional center in Jones County (in 2009), the Iowa City superintendent at the time came and looked at the facility and said, ‘There’s no way we can build an auto lab like this.’ Those high technical areas, not only is it expensive for one district to manage their own, but it’s challenging finding and retaining faculty that have those strong technical skills,” Black said.

Some college classes taught at high schools

In Iowa, school districts are required to have an Individual Career and Academic Plan for each student in grades eight through 12.

Beginning this year, school districts are required to implement career-focused learning starting in fifth grade. These experiences build early career awareness and support for students to engage in career planning later on.

“I think now more than ever schools are seeing they have to show multiple pathways for students and their families. Schools are trying to partner with programs like ours to make sure they’re offering a variety of pathways. In many cases, embedding workplace learning opportunities and opportunities to earn industry recognized credentials,” Black said.

Black said up to 50 percent of those students are taking Kirkwood classes within their high schools taught by high school teachers who have the credentials to teach dual enrollment classes.

Stephanie Neff teaches those classes at Washington High School. She is considered an adjunct faculty for Kirkwood. Neff teaches How College Works, Personal Wellness, and Exploration of Healthcare Careers.

Offering college classes on the high school campus helps remove barriers for students who don’t have transportation, Neff said. Other students just aren’t interested in leaving the high school setting.

“It gives students unsure about college some confidence, and they earn college credit while doing it,” Neff said.

“We’re not in any way locking them into a career choice just because they’re taking a handful of college classes in high school,” Neff said. “Students are exploring different careers like they should be and in a variety of different ways. We’re coaching them through that process of career exploration.”

College classes help students ‘connect those dots’

The Iowa City Community School District has doubled its student participation in Kirkwood classes over the last five years. Last year, 1,150 students — or 21 percent of Iowa City high school students — were dual enrolled compared to 640 during the 2020-21 school year.

There also are students dual enrolled in classes at the University of Iowa, said Carmen Gwenigale, director of Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment for the Iowa City Community School District.

Gwenigale said the district has been intentional in increasing the number of students dual enrolled. In eighth grade, students attend “Pathway to Purpose,” a district-hosted event where they learn about what classes are available to them in high school and start to plan their schedule for the next four years.

Today’s students are “voicing a need for meaningful learning,” and schools are helping them “connect those dots” between their coursework and future career goals,“ Gwenigale said.

Gwenigale said too many students enter college without a solid idea of what they’re interested in studying, and it gets frustrating and expensive.

“Why not provide those opportunities for them in high school to explore their careers through college classes, job shadows and internship,” Gwenigale said.

The district even is exploring what it could look like for students interested to earn their associate degree while in high school, she said.

Aaron Davidson, superintendent of the Clear Creek Amana Community School District, said dual enrollment is a win for kids.

The Vinton-Shellsburg Community School District has about 42 percent, or 171 high school students, dual enrolled.

“We want to give kids every opportunity we can to take the courses they’re interested in,” said Matt Kingsbury, principal of Vinton-Shellsburg High School.

Kingsbury said school counselors talk to students about their career interests early and often in their high school journey. For students who might not be ready for college-level classes, he said they try to recommend alternative options. “If they’re advocating for it, we’ll do what we can” to help them succeed, Kingsbury said.

Kingsbury said it’s important students understand the grades they earn taking college classes will follow them to their next college or university if they continue their postsecondary education.

Kayla Wakeham, 16, another junior at City View in Cedar Rapids, began taking college classes when she was a freshman.

She’s taking a forensics class online through Kirkwood, where she’s learning about bloodstain pattern analysis. She’s thinking about taking a psychology class next semester.

Wakeham is planning to take two full semesters of Kirkwood classes her senior year of high school, which she thinks will get her close to graduating high school with an associate degree.

“It’ll save a lot of money,” she said. “The Kirkwood classes are very valuable to me. I like planning ahead.”

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