In 2000, the Illinois Community College Board launched the Accelerated College Enrollment (ACE) grants that support tuition waivers for high school students who are enrolled in dual credit courses. Many of the downstate community colleges, serving small, rural high school districts unable to provide college-level academic courses (e.g., calculus or physics), are using the ACE grants to provide those courses to their district high schools. Because the Prairie State College district is located in the south suburbs of Chicago, our eight suburban high schools already offer many honors and AP courses and would not welcome our offering dual credit in traditional academic courses.

Instead, the college saw the ACE grants as an excellent opportunity to develop a dual credit program focusing on specific career and technical courses in our local high schools. By removing one major obstacle-tuition payments!- these grants facilitated work with high school administrators and faculty to convert some Tech Prep, fully articulated courses into dual credit courses. The response of our high school colleagues exceeded expectations. We had initially hoped to establish one dual credit course in each of a limited number of high schools. However, due to the enthusiastic response of both high school administrators and faculty, in the first year (2000-2001) we offered at least one dual credit course in all eight high schools. A total of 233 high school students successfully completed the courses and were awarded Prairie State College credit. Homewood-Flossmoor High School, the high school with the largest career and technical program, offered four dual credit courses.

The foundation for this effort was the close partnership already established between Prairie State College (PSC) and district high schools through the Career Preparation Network (CPN), the regional Tech Prep coordinating council. Every two years the College and the CPN have co-hosted an articulation meeting between the career program coordinators at the College and their faculty counterparts in the high schools. At these meetings, College faculty members review the qualifications of the high school faculty and the content of their course outlines to ensure comparability and then sign articulation agreements. Typically a technical class (e.g., Welding 1), which meets for two semesters at the high school, is found to be equivalent to the introductory college course (Welding 101) which meets for one semester. Students who successfully complete the high school course are given a certificate of articulated credit which, upon enrollment at PSC, is posted to their transcript. This grants college credit to the student and permits him/her to advance to the next course in the career program, thus saving the student and family time and money. These bi-annual meetings and articulated credit agreements have built a solid foundation of mutual respect and cooperation between the career faculty at the College and in our high schools.

Why, when some community colleges have experienced strong resistance from their high school districts, has Prairie State College been so successful in this dual credit initiative? Clearly the focus upon career and technical courses was the basis of our success. When we first approached our high school principals with this opportunity, we made it clear we did not intend to "invade their territory" in the honors and AP program. They were, however, very receptive to providing students enrolled in their Tech Prep courses with the opportunity for dual credit. The vocational administrators and high school faculty who teach in the Tech Prep programs also felt that the dual credit option would help them build interest and enrollment in their programs, as well as providing students with an important linkage to the College.

Prior to approaching our high school counterparts, PSC administrators developed two sets of guidelines for this dual credit program. The administrative guidelines outline the procedures for determining which courses are eligible, communicating with parents, and advising, enrolling, and grading students. They also address faculty qualifications and compensation and the coordination of College and high school administrative procedures.

The student guidelines, presented in a straightforward question-and-answer format, focus on the issues of greatest interest to students and their parents. We take great care to ensure "truth in advertising" for this program: students and their parents are informed that, although these dual credit courses provide college credit in specified career and technical programs (e.g., automotive technology, computer networking (NetPrep), welding, manufacturing technology, CAD/CAM, office administration technology) at Prairie State College, other colleges and universities will probably not grant credit for these courses unless the student completes an A.A.S. degree and matriculates into a capstone baccalaureate degree program.

To enroll in a dual credit course, the high school student, his/her parent and the high school guidance counselor must all sign a contract, which clarifies the procedures. In anticipation of guidance counselors' concerns that high school students may earn a poor grade on their college transcript, PSC included a guideline requiring the faculty members to notify us of any high school student at risk of getting a D or F in a dual credit course. That student is then administratively withdrawn from the course at the College.

Prairie State's dual credit program has had several important benefits to the College. It has led to even closer collaboration and articulation with the career and technical faculty and programs in our district high schools. We view this initiative as the culmination of a long effort to develop a clear curricular continuum in technical education, which starts in our high schools, leads to enrollment in A.A.S. programs at the College, and then provides opportunities for our students to complete a baccalaureate capstone program at Southern Illinois University, Governors State University, Purdue University Calumet or other private colleges in our region. In addition to significantly increasing the number of students enrolled in our career programs, this program has also enhanced our efforts to connect with Tech Prep students before they graduate from high school.

In addition, the ACE grant funding facilitated our establishment of a dual credit computer networking program with two of our high schools with probable expansion to a third high school next year. Moreover, we have been able to secure both a Special Initiative Grant in technology from the Illinois Community College Board and two technology grants from our State Representative, George Scully, to purchase equipment and provide faculty training for the NetPrep program, both in the high schools and at the College. Scully made it clear that we got his support for funding because we were able to demonstrate the close high school/College collaboration that is necessary to provide good technical education in our community.

Prairie State College intends to build upon its successful dual credit program. Five new dual credit courses have been added this year and the college anticipates increasing the number of student completers by 50%. Dual credit is a win-win program for the high schools and the College. The biggest winners, however, are the Tech Prep students who have begun to view themselves as "college material" and to make their postsecondary plans to prepare for a technical career.