The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) met this morning in Richmond and reported to legislators on costs and funding of Virginia's Dual Enrollment system. This report was in response to legislation asking for a review and study of dual enrollment by the Virginia General Assembly.
In 2018, the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation to improve the quality of the state’s dual enrollment programs and to increase the likelihood that the state’s public four year higher education institutions would accept dual enrollment credits. The reforms required by the legislature—and implemented by the Virginia Community College System (VCCS), the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), and Virginia’s public higher education institutions— are likely to accomplish these goals, helping students achieve the time and cost savings that are promoted as a key benefit of dual enrollment courses.
To Review the Full JLARC Report on Dual Enrollment Costs and Funding, Click Here.
To Review the Presentation from Staff, Click Here.
JLARC Recommendations:
Legislative Action
- Include language in the Appropriation Act prohibiting community colleges and school divisions from charging tuition and fees for non-career and technical education dual enrollment courses taught on public high school campuses as long as state funds cover dual enrollment expenses.
- Direct community colleges to document and track the amounts and sources of revenues and expenses related to their dual enrollment programs to improve transparency in what colleges spend to operate their dual enrollment programs, how they are funded, and funding sufficiency.
- Include language in the Appropriation Act to specify the amount appropriated for non-career and technical education dual enrollment courses taught on public high school campuses, based on community colleges’ dual enrollment costs, to ensure transparency in state funding decisions.
- Direct VCCS to design and implement a process for distributing state funds to community colleges for their dual enrollment students based on the dual enrollment program expenses reported by the colleges to ensure transparency in how each college’s dual enrollment program is funded.
- Assign to SCHEV responsibility for overseeing the state’s dual enrollment program.
- Appropriate funding for bonuses to high school dual enrollment teachers.
- Appropriate funding to pay college faculty to teach dual enrollment courses at high schools with an insufficient number of dual enrollment teachers.
- If the General Assembly prohibits colleges and school divisions from charging dual enrollment tuition and fees: (i) appropriate funding for community colleges to replace dual enrollment tuition and fee revenue and (ii) create a grant program for school divisions that demonstrate the need for funds to create or maintain high-quality, well-staffed dual enrollment programs.
- Make no changes to the methodology that is used to base appropriations to VCCS for colleges’ Educational and General Programs so that community colleges’ overall funding levels are not reduced by the surplus amount of state funds they have been receiving for dual enrollment programs.
