State working to set limits on College Credit Plus program

Rules would specify which courses are appropriate.

If you’re a high school or middle school student hoping to boogie your way to free college credits in a Zumba class or strap into a Cessna for an aviation course, you might be out of luck.

As Ohio’s College Credit Plus program continues to evolve, the state is working to implement new rules to determine which courses are eligible for the program and how to handle underperforming students.

Ohio legislators included a variety of provisions and changes for the program in the state’s budget bill passed last summer. The bill also required the Chancellor of Higher Education to develop rules specifying which courses are eligible for College Credit Plus funding and conditions under which an underperforming student can continue to participate.

Those rules, currently under review, were developed based on feedback from stakeholders within the legislature, K-12 education and higher education, said Larissa Harper, director of College Credit Plus.

The proposed course eligibility rule states that students must first complete 15 credit hours of what the state is calling “Level I” courses before moving on to other courses. As proposed, Level I includes: transferable courses; courses in computer science, information technology, anatomy, physiology or foreign language; technical certificate courses; study skills or career success courses; and internship courses. They also might include another course to be approved by the chancellor on an annual basis, as well as model pathway courses developed by secondary schools in consultation with a public partnering college, which apply to a degree or professional certification.

Previously, students in College Credit Plus could take any course in a college’s course catalog that was not remedial or religious as long as it applied toward a degree or professional certificate in a subject area in which the student was college-ready.

The proposed rule also prohibits private instruction, study abroad, physical education, pass-fail, remedial and sectarian religious courses, as well as courses with excessive fees, such as an aviation course that requires high fees to cover fuel costs, Harper said.

Some of those courses were “not really what we had in mind for college coursework related to College Credit Plus,” Harper said. “We were hearing that students were taking Zumba and Pilates at the expense of state taxpayers ... we did not find that appropriate.”

The proposed underperforming-student rule would place a College Credit Plus student on probation when he or she earns lower than a cumulative 2.0 GPA in college courses or withdraws from two or more courses in the same term. A student on probation could enroll in no more than one college course at a time.

Previously, high school counselors or college advisers could make recommendations to a student who wasn’t doing well in their CCP courses, but there were no set rules in place for underperformance.

“(College Credit Plus) is a great opportunity to introduce (students) to college-level coursework, assuming they can handle it,” said Bruce Johnson, Inter-University Council of Ohio president. “Some stu Director of College Credit Plus dents have been excited to try college, but are academically underprepared.”

The proposed rules provide “instant accountability for students,” said Tim Kraynak, college counselor and assistant principal at Worthington Christian High School.

“There’s this idea out there with parents and students that, well, the state will pay for it, so if I don’t perform well, there really is no cost to me,” Kraynak said. In reality though, those grades end up on a student’s transcript and a district might seek reimbursement for the course from the student’s family.

“Some of the measures that we’re putting in place are going to be healthy overall for parents and students,” Kraynak said.

C. Todd Jones, president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio, said the proposed rules are logical extensions of the changes put in place through the budget bill last summer and don’t substantially burden independent colleges. Still, many private schools are watching how the state might address other concerns, such as ensuring student maturity, institutions being obligated to pay for student assessments and other administrative matters, he said.

“We’re still waiting to see how some of these changes play out over the next year to determine whether institutions stay in.”

If approved, the new rules are anticipated to be implemented this summer.

‘We were hearing that students were taking Zumba and Pilates at the expense of state taxpayers ... we did not find that appropriate.’

Larissa Harper