To help low-income youth complete high school and transition to college by providing rigorous, supportive and career-focused dual enrollment programs.
Irvine’s Youth program seeks to transform high school education in California by making Linked Learning available to any interested student to give them an advantage for college and careers. The Linked Learning approach provides high school students with strong academics connected to real-world experience in a wide range of fields, such as engineering, arts and media, and biomedicine and health.
The Concurrent Courses Initiative was created to demonstrate the feasibility of using dual enrollment to strengthen the Linked Learning approach for students. The initiative provides funding and technical assistance to support partnerships between high schools and community colleges. These partnerships are expanding supportive and challenging career-focused dual enrollment opportunities for students who are historically underrepresented in higher education.
Dual Enrollment
Dual, or concurrent, enrollment programs offer high school students a chance to take college-level courses on a high school or college campus. These programs offer students challenging curricula, exposure to college environments and an opportunity to earn college credits while still in high school.
High-achieving students have long had the opportunity to get a head start on college. But increasingly, educators recognize that dual-enrollment programs can help a broader range of students make the transition from high school to college. Research shows that students in these programs are more likely to earn a high school diploma, enter college and earn higher grade-point averages.
Partnerships
The Concurrent Courses Initiative is managed by the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College, Columbia University. There are eight partnerships between high schools and community colleges funded through this initiative:
- Arthur A. Benjamin Health Professions High School, Sacramento
Partner: Sacramento City College
- City College of San Francisco, San Francisco
Partner: San Francisco Unified School District
- Long Beach Unified School District, Long Beach
Partners: Long Beach City College, California State University Long Beach
- Los Angeles City College, Los Angeles
Partners: Hollywood Senior High, Downtown Business Magnets High, Miguel Contreras Learning Complex
- North Orange County ROP, Anaheim
Partners: Anaheim Union High School District, Cypress College, Fullerton College
- Santa Barbara City College, Santa Barbara
Partners: Santa Barbara High School District, Carpinteria High School District, South Coast ROP
- Shasta Union High School District, Shasta
Partners: Anderson Union High School District, Shasta College, Shasta-Trinity ROP
- Tulare Joint Union High School District, Tulare
Partner: College of the Sequoias
Selection Criteria
Concurrent Courses partnerships were selected through a competitive proposal review managed by CCRC. Selection criteria focused on proposals which would:
- Expand dual-enrollment participation to low-income, academically underperforming students and those underrepresented in higher education
- Ensure that career-focused dual enrollment college courses are rigorous, authentic and transferable
- Integrate rigorous academics and career-technical subject matter
- Create strong collaborative relationships between community college and high school partners
- Provide support to help students succeed in their dual-enrollment courses and transitions to college
- Create program sequences that span high school and college classes
- Collect data on students’ secondary and postsecondary outcomes for evaluation
Resources
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