Panhandle State offers college credit, master's in agribusiness
GOODWELL — Oklahoma Panhandle State University will launch a pilot program next fall to give qualified students the chance to graduate from high school with a college degree.
President Tim Faltyn said high school students who enroll in the program will start as first-semester sophomores with two courses and will continue earning college credits each spring, summer and fall of high school for a total of 62 credits.
The program is designed to let students have “a high school experience” with a limited number of activities, Faltyn said.
To qualify, students must score 20 on the ACT or pre-ACT, or must have a grade-point average of at least 3.0 and rank in the top half of their class.
Students who complete the Early College High School Dual Credit Program will earn a high school diploma and an associate of science degree simultaneously, Faltyn said. They can choose education, business or STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) as their area of concentration.
“We will register our first class of sophomores in the summer of 2018 after they have taken the pre-ACT and scored high enough to be accepted,” Faltyn said. “We will add a second cohort in fall 2019. It’s very exciting.”
He estimates the first cohort will have 10 to 30 students from Guymon High School and about five students from Goodwell High School.
“This is one of the ways we work with our K-12 partners,” Faltyn said. “I really believe this is the future for us.”
This summer, 20 students from Dove Science Academy in Oklahoma City began a similar dualenrollment program with Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma City. OSU-OKC President Natalie Shirley said the students are thriving.
First master’s program
Also coming to Oklahoma Panhandle State is the university’s first graduate degree program, a master’s in agribusiness that is being offered primarily online.
Faltyn said OSPU graduates about 100 agribusiness majors each year.
“Next up will be a master’s degree in education,” he said.