Board of Regents reports growth in dual enrollment and urges expanded adult scholarships and workforce-aligned credentials

Kim Hunter-Reid, commissioner of higher education, and Board of Regents chair Misty Cordell briefed the Senate Education Committee on March 18 with a multi-part report: dual enrollment expansion, teacher recruitment and retention work, scholarship reviews (TOPS, MJ Foster, GoTeach and Patriot Scholars) and health-care workforce needs (nursing and allied health).

The Regents reported 41,000 high-school students participating in dual enrollment at public postsecondary institutions, an 11% year-over-year increase and three consecutive years of double-digit increases. The Regents said 74% of the class of 2023 graduated with a college credit or credential (the joint Regents-BESE 2029 goal had been to raise the share of seniors with credit/credential). The presentation noted that only about 20% of current dual-enrolled students pursue career-technical coursework, and Regents officials asked for policy attention to expand career-technical dual enrollment participation so high school juniors and seniors can earn industry credentials as well as academic credit.

On workforce and scholarships, the Regents recommended larger investments in several programs: the MJ Foster adult scholarship program, created in 2021, served roughly 3,000 students with an initial $10.5 million appropriation and the Regents recommended increasing MJ Foster funding to $21 million to expand adult scholarship capacity; the GoTeach scholarship (for educators) had a $2.5 million appropriation and served 428 students but used only $965,000 of the appropriation in the first year; the Patriots/ National Guard scholarship serves about 1,500 students and had a $3.7 million appropriation; Regents staff outlined options to harmonize eligibility among TOPS-Tech, MJ Foster and other programs so career-technical programs use consistent workforce-aligned eligibility criteria from the Louisiana Workforce Commission.

Regents also reported on teacher recruitment, retention and recovery initiatives required by a 2021 legislative tasking: that work included grow-your-own pipeline highlights (1,700 high-school students in pre-education pathways), paraprofessional-to-teacher conversions (approximately 600 participants), increased mentor capacity and principal-fellow supports. The presenters said state and local joint actions to boost compensation and remove classroom barriers have contributed to declines in reported teacher vacancies (witnesses described vacancy counts falling from about 2,503 several years ago to roughly 1,100 at present), and the Regents flagged ongoing work to expand incentives for high-need content-area teachers.

On health-care workforce needs the Regents provided supply figures: roughly 66,500 registered nurses, about 22,000 LPNs and about 10,000 APRNs in state registries; they noted turnover and unfilled clinical seats in some nursing programs and said the Regents are developing coordinated approaches to expand clinical placements, faculty pipelines and application portals to reduce friction for applicants across multiple campuses.

Regents staff said a set of statutory and administrative recommendations and draft bills would be provided to legislators and that detailed reports for each topic were available through QR-coded one-pagers distributed with the committee packet. The Regents asked the legislature to consider funding increases to expand adult scholarships (MJ Foster), to stabilize GoTeach scholarship usage and to support dual-enrollment parity and capacity building for career-technical pathways.

Notes: Committee members asked about regional variations, how dual-enrollment dollars are braided at the district level and how scholarship stacks interact with federal Pell awards. Regents staff committed to follow-up analyses and to share data files and one-page summaries for legislative consideration.