Pell Grants Will Help High-School Students Pay for College Courses

High-school students taking college courses for credit will be able to receive Pell Grants for the first time, under an experiment the Education Department announced on Friday.

The announcement occurred just two weeks after the department unveiled another pilot that will allow federal grants and loans to flow to educational-technology companies that team up with colleges to offer coding boot camps, MOOCs, short-term certificates, and other credentials.

More than 1.4 million high-school students took college courses for credit, a process known as dual enrollment, in 2010-11, according to department statistics. Some research suggests that low-income and first-generation students who participate in dual enrollment and early-college high schools (a highly structured dual-enrollment program) are more likely to enroll in college and graduate.

Still, cost can be a barrier for some students; at nearly half of institutions with dual-enrollment programs, most students pay out of pocket for tuition.

Under the pilot, the department will spend up to $20 million on aid for dually enrolled students in the 2016-17 academic year, providing awards to as many as 10,000 low-income students, according to a news release.

President Obama has long been an advocate of early college and other dual-enrollment programs, promoting them in his State of the Union address as a faster way for students to earn degrees. But the programs have come under scrutiny recently, with the country’s largest regional accreditor questioning whether high-school teachers in some dual-enrollment programs have the proper qualifications.

In an update to its guidelines issued this month, the Higher Learning Commission reminded the programs that their instructors must have a master’s degrees in the subject they’re teaching, or at least 18 graduate-level credit hours in the specialty. The clarification has left some programs in the accreditor’s Midwestern jurisdiction scrambling to comply.

Kelly Field is a senior reporter covering federal higher-education policy. Contact her at kelly.field@chronicle.com. Or follow her on Twitter @kfieldCHE.