Fast Track would let high schoolers take college classes

LACONIA — Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) visited faculty and staff at Lakes Region Community College on April 25 to discuss the introduction of bipartisan legislation to create a grant program aimed at helping high school students earn college credits. 

The bill, introduced in March and co-sponsored by Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), is called the Fast Track To and Through College Act and would support students enrolled in early college programs, such as the one at LRCC, to take up to a full year of college courses, and would ensure that public colleges and universities would accept those credits. 

“I am focusing on making sure that students can get the kind of education they ended to prepare them to work in the 21st century economy and we know that one of the things that impacts all places, but regions like this one, is having people ready to work with the skills that the local economy really needs,” Hassan said in an interview. “Lakes Region has been at the forefront of trying to make sure that its educational offerings align those needs. It’s also really important that we allow students a lot of flexibility about accessing these programs in a way that makes sense for them.”

The bill will support high school students in their pursuit of college credits by: allowing students enrolled in early college programs to take up to a full-year of courses; ensure that students enrolled in early-college courses will receive credit by requiring public colleges and universities to accept those credits; and by expanding access to Pell grants to low-income students to decrease the burden of dual-enrollment fees. 

Metrics such as affordability and accessibility of advanced education are paramount to the economic success of places like the Lakes Region, Hassan said. 

“Affordability is key, we want to have more early college programs that really, we’re talking about a continuum of education for young people from high school through community college and getting them through their studies or their training as fast as we can,” she said. “The other thing is employers in a region like this, driven among other things by travel and tourism but also with a lot of needs for advanced manufacturing workers, they need to know that they can get a workforce quickly and that they can also partner with their community college to make sure that some of the curriculum is really going to prepare the students in a way that makes them readily available, so it’s a really important partnership in this region.”

The collaboration between local, state and federal partners will be necessary to develop an infrastructure to better serve local economies, Hassan noted.

“This is about partnerships and relationships, as we’ve heard, and I think that the investment that the State’s been able to make, the investment that we continue to make at the federal level that we want to expand, is going to be very important,” she said. “What I hope young people understand is that they are all capable of doing the thing they love and we want to make sure that they are trained and educated in a way that helps them follow their passions, earn a good living so that they can support a family, and make sure that they have the skill sets that they need to be the kind of citizens that they want to be.”

Jessy Wood, 16, of Franklin is one local student who is taking advantage of college credit offerings while still in high school. She discovered a love for cooking and had a job interview at Beans & Greens, in Gilford, later that afternoon. 

“I think it was a big difference to go from homeschooling straight to a community college, especially because I was 15 so everyone was like 3, 4, 5, even some close to 10 years older than me, but I grew up with older siblings so I was used to being around people with an age gap,” Wood said. “But I think that having the accessibility and encouraging students to do it, like Chuck [Lloyd, Vice Chancellor at LRCC] said, it's the confidence that you need. Once you start a course it’s like, ‘Oh, even if I just did one course, I did a college course while I was still in high school.'"

Wood said her experience growing up in a large family influenced her decision to take culinary arts courses at LRCC. 

“I wonder if they have a culinary program?” she said. “I looked and they did, and I came in and I signed up for classes and I started the next day.”

Mark Rubinstein, chancellor of the Community College System of New Hampshire, said the program will have a great impact on the education system market and the economy.

“This is a centerpiece for work that we’re trying to do more of and do better,” Rubinstein said. “You’re absolutely right about the need for post-secondary education, you’re also absolutely right about the barrier that cost concerns about debt have created for students and families. We’ve typically handled early college in a more transactional way, and to some degree we’ve rationed it when it ought to be broadly available — the barrier that even $50 a credit poses for some students and families is a hardship.”

Vice Chancellor Chuck Lloyd said the boost to self-confidence experienced by young students through taking early college students is significant. 

“When a student learns they are college material because they’re sitting in a course that is a syllabus and curriculum that is a college-level course, the trajectory for those students is astronomical,” Lloyd said. “I come from Franklin High School — that’s where I went to school. At that point, college was not really a conversation we had on a daily basis, we didn’t have a lot of access to college courses.”

New college President Patrick Cate said engagement with young students makes a big difference down the line.

“It’s not just the general three ways that we used to do it, which is students taking classes at the high school taught by high school faculty members using the curriculum that’s approved for accreditation, and then you have online and then you have students coming to us,” Cate said, adding that the college is sending faculty members to teach classes at high schools in order to make the program more accessible.