Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Education’s latest experimental sites announcement will give high school students taking courses for college credit access to federal financial aid through the Pell Grant program.
- The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the department plans to spend $20 million during the 2016-17 school year, awarding grants to as many as 10,000 low-income students.
- There were more than 1.4 million high school students taking courses for college credit during the 2010-11 school year, and nearly half of schools allowing dual enrollment asked most students to pay tuition costs themselves.
Dive Insight:
The department’s other recent experimental sites announcement gave alternative higher education providers like coding bootcamps access to federal financial aid dollars through partnerships with accredited institutions. Some analysts say federal funding could spur the growth in the number of coding bootcamps to follow the for-profit college industry’s boom, which came with huge profits for operators and uneven program quality.
Even though the cost of such re-training programs could be earned back in higher salaries and future employment, the tuition, in some cases, is still prohibitive for certain would-be students. Federal funding will increase access for this group. It will be up to regulators to maintain quality along the way.