Joint high school enrollment at Iowa community colleges hits new high

The number of Iowa high school students jointly enrolled at one of the state's 15 community colleges grew to record levels in Fiscal Year 2012, according to a new state report.

Joint enrollment -- high school students enrolled in community college credit courses -- increased 1.7 percent from fiscal 2011 to fiscal 2012, from 38,892 to 39,570. Average annual growth in joint enrollment over the past five years was 5.9 percent.

The Iowa Community Colleges 2012 Joint Enrollment Report was presented Thursday to the State Board of Education during a meeting in Des Moines.

Jointly-enrolled high school students accounted for almost 26 percent of total community college enrollment in 2012, according to the report. About half of the jointly-enrolled students were high school seniors and about one-third were juniors.

Most of the students -- 87.5 percent -- were enrolled in courses delivered through a contractual agreement between a community college and a school district, according to the report.

The most common subject areas for high school students in joint enrollment were English language and literature; social sciences and history; math; foreign languages; and various career and technical disciplines.

Kirkwood Community College, with main campuses in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, had joint enrollment of 3,725 in fiscal 2012, a decline of 2 percent from the 3,809 joint enrollments in 2011. Kirkwood's joint enrollment has increased 47 percent since 2008.

Des Moines Area Community College had by far the largest joint enrollment head count in 2012, with 13,162 students.