Virtual alignment of high school & college

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We’re seeing the beginning of aligned high school and college assets online.

Apex led the way with online AP courses—the most popular college credit strategy—and most online providers including K12 followed suit.

Milken’s impressive education portfolio includes KC Distance Learning (Keystone, Aventa, and iQ) and Sierra Nevada College and Ellis University. Kids that graduate from an iQ high school will gain automatic enrollment into the online colleges.

Connections Academy recently announced a virtual early college high school—students that earn a Connections high school diploma will also be able to earn an associates degree from American Public University in four years (a bachelors degree in six).

Insight, an Apollo sub, as at least 9 statewide virtual schools. Students earn auto-enrollment into Axia College and, in some states, students can earn dual enrollment credits while in high school.

Randy Best launched Epic with ECHS intentions but it looks like they have abandoned dual enrollment.

Kaplan has an online high school and an online university but I don’t see any evidence of dual enrollment opportunities.

Tom Vander Ark

Tom Vander Ark

Tom is author of Getting Smart: How Digital Learning is Changing the World and founder of GettingSmart.com. Tom is also a partner in Learn Capital, a venture capital firm investing in learning content, platforms, and services with the goal of transforming educational engagement, access, and effectiveness.

2 Comments

Mzmacky /

I’ve been waiting to see this type of crossover. I would expect to see more universities with significant online course offerings or just strong community outreach to start to work with local high schools to provide college/high school credit courses. I’m wondering how this might affect the AP curriculum and offerings.

Dave Saba /

Both of my daughters have graduated high school and are on to college. From a parent perspective, I would much prefer college credit to AP. AP credit comes down to one test – college credit comes down to the grade and they learn to really study for college. For my money – go crossover.