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Tuesday ,Dec 16 2014
Central Ohio students urged to take college courses while in high school
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Jonathan Quilter | Dispatch Tobey Kegley waits to walk across the stage to receive her associate degree from Columbus State. She graduated from high school in June and took enough college classes to earn her degree only two months after her high-school graduation. -
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Jonathan Quilter | Dispatch Tobey Kegley, who graduated from high school in June, gets ready to hug Columbus State President David T. Harrison before receiving her degree. After taking two years’ worth of college classes in high school, she started at Ohio University this fall as a junior.
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So that’s what she did.
Kegley started by taking French at Columbus State Community College after her freshman year at Upper Arlington High School, and later juggled as many as six college courses each semester on top of her high-school workload. She graduated from Upper Arlington in June and, two months later, had earned enough credits for an associate degree in interactive media at Columbus State.
On Friday, Kegley, 18, joined 1,425 other graduates during Columbus State’s autumn commencement.
“I didn’t have emotions when I graduated from high school,” said Kegley, who is already enrolled as a third-year student at Ohio University. “It was a busy time, finishing up school, studying for another semester. ... Now that everything has settled down, it may be different.”
Kegley is an example of what local educators hope to see as more districts expand opportunities for high-school students to earn college credits or even receive an associate degree. Doing so, officials say, could help students make the transition into the workplace or finish college successfully and without debt.
Kegley “is very unique in that more schools are trying to do this work now,” said Kelly Hogan, executive director of college transitions at Columbus State. The college has joined with 40 area high schools to help students take Columbus State courses without leaving their school.
The community college works with school districts to identify career paths and offer classes that count for both high-school and college. That can help students earn a degree on top of a high-school diploma, Hogan said.
Among Columbus State’s partnerships is the state-funded Innovation Generation initiative, through which several school districts have launched programs that focus on industries in Ohio with open jobs, such as information technology, logistics, health care and advanced manufacturing.
“We’re trying to help (students) organize their course schedules so they are making good course choices that will lead them to a specific goal,” Hogan said. “That way, they are not wasting time or money. If they can make those choices early, they can make great headway on their degree.”
It has been more common to see high-school students graduating with college credits or an associate degree in Early College high schools, which typically are designed for students who are impoverished, come from marginalized communities and are first-generation college students.
Some Ohio early colleges, such as Lorain County Early College High School, emphasize attaining an associate degree. Since 2008, 322 Lorain County students have received a high-school diploma and an associate degree.
Central Ohio has five early-college high schools. At Marysville Early College High School, which opened this year, students take their first Columbus State course as ninth-graders.
Kegley started her Columbus State career with that French class the summer after her freshman year. At 14, she was the youngest student in the room. But she had safety nets: Her mother taught at the college and helped her connect with the class professor. Her uncle, a Columbus State student, took the course with her.
“They made it not so scary,” she said. “Columbus State is great. There are people with so many backgrounds. We got to know people who have a lot of different perspectives.”
As a sophomore, she started planning her junior- and senior-year schedules and noticed that many of her high-school peers were bulking up on Advanced Placement classes. Instead, she discovered that Columbus State offered an associate-degree program in an area that interested her — digital video and sound.
She enrolled in Columbus State’s interactive-media program as a junior, starting her day at the Downtown campus and then returning to Upper Arlington in the afternoon.
There were challenges. Winter and spring breaks at the high school did not match those at Columbus State, so she often did schoolwork while others were on vacation. She ate lunch during the car ride or in her high-school classes.
But Upper Arlington schools paid for the college classes. And even with the double workload, she competed on her high-school rowing team. She worked at the high school’s theater, as a lifeguard and as a Columbus State ambassador: She gave campus tours, served as an orientation leader and organized conferences.
She missed some high-school experiences such as athletic events, but the payoff came when she and her friends examined their college schedules.
“They were signing up for 15 to 18 credit hours,” she said. “I already had 80 credit hours.”
She arrived on OU’s Athens campus this fall as a junior, just a few months after graduating from high school. She said her experience at Columbus State has helped her acclimate to college life at OU.
“I learned that there are a lot of different options that people have and finding the right option for you is what’s best. I wasn’t content really with the typical route at Upper Arlington, so I was ready to do something else for myself.”
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