Recently, the New Mexico Higher Education Department and Public Education Department jointly published a report on dual credit enrollment for the academic year 2012-2013. Enrollment for many two-year campuses in the state is significantly impacted by dual credit courses, especially the following:
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New Mexico State University Carlsbad Branch: 28-36%
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University of New Mexico Taos Branch: 25-33%
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Eastern New Mexico University Ruidoso: 22-25%
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Mesalands Community College : 24%
The percentage of dual credit courses taken online between Fall 2010 and Spring 2013 rose from 16% to 21%; of the face-to-face classes, for the Spring 2013 semester, 57% were taken on a college campus while 43% were taken at high schools. Students taking courses on college campuses got “slightly poorer grades,” with around 80% of those enrolled earning a grade or C or better in a credit-bearing course. In the spring of 2013, New Mexico dual credit students earned the following grades:
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§ A 5,876
§ B 4,118
§ C 2,273
§ D 758
§ F 883
§ Other 1,469
The report does not offer comparative data on instructor qualifications or loads across the three delivery venues(online, high school, or college campus), nor does it offer a comparison of dual credit grades with regular college grades to see if there might be a trend toward inflation, in terms of A’s and B’s, to explore.
The most popular dual credit courses in New Mexico for Spring 2013 were courses in the following discipline areas (in order of enrollment):
- § Health profession and related clinical sciences (1336)
- § English language and literature/letters (1231)
- § Visual and performing arts (1046)
- § Mathematics and statistics (904)
- § Business, management, marketing, and related (897)
Overall, the number of New Mexico dual credit students has grown from 9,951 in 2008-2009 to 14,151 in 2012-2013, representing a rapid increase over the five year period. While the majority of students enrolled in a single class, the report indicates that some students enrolled in six or more classes in a single semester.
New Mexico, like many other states, will continue to invest in dual
enrollment because existing evidence shows that it increases student chances of
completing a degree and lowers the cost of that degree.
Much of the data is compiled in the attached presentation.
Since college-level English courses are very popularfor dual enrollment students, this trend impacts enrollment and possibly pedagogy of English courses at the college-level in New Mexico.