Committee hears proposal to cap state-funded dual-enrollment courses at four credits

Senator Victoria Sullivan introduced House Bill 193 and invited testimony from the Community College System of New Hampshire about a proposal to clarify which dual and concurrent enrollment college courses are eligible for state funding.

Shannon Reed, director of government affairs for the Community College System of New Hampshire, told the Senate Education Committee that the state program allows high school students to earn dual high school and college credit and serves more than 10,000 students annually. "More than 10,000 students every year, from every region of New Hampshire take advantage of this program, collectively earning about 60,000 college credits before they graduate from high school," Reed said.

Reed described the bill as narrowly drawn: "The intent of this bill is to just confirm that the courses that are eligible for the state funding shall be no more than 4 credits." She said typical community college courses are three or four credits but a handful of highly technical courses—examples she gave included aviation airframe and power plant courses, paramedic and fire programs, advanced machine tool and some nursing courses—are longer and were not intended to be funded by the state program.

Committee members asked for examples and for clarifications of how many courses a student could take under the program. Reed said most participants are juniors and seniors, although qualified younger students sometimes enroll, and that the program covers up to four credits per course and the state funding covers a limited number of courses: "The students can take as many courses a year as they want to, but, the program covers up to 4. Students can pay for more than 4. And in fact, the funding that is currently in place for the program doesn't support for a year. So we have we have limited it to 2, because that's what the funding will cover."

Reed added that limiting covered courses to four credits is intended to stretch available funding to impact the most students: "The funding that's been appropriated for it doesn't reach as far as we'd like as it is. So this is just a way to broaden the impact." Senators did not take a final vote on HB 193 at the hearing.

The testimony included high-level program context (number of students served, estimated credits earned) and specific examples of higher-credit technical courses that would remain eligible for local or self-funded enrollment but would not be guaranteed state funding under HB 193.