Closing the college access gap: D158 partners with McHenry County College offering students a chance to earn a college degree while in high school

MCHENRY COUNTY – At the June 3 Committee of the Whole meeting, assistant superintendent for District 158 (D158) Erika Schlichter, presented to the Board of Education (BOE) an introduction of a Dual Degree Program D158 will be pursuing in partnership with McHenry County College (MCC).

Schlichter explained that the program had been investigated by the district for over five years and the BOE would only need to vote on the intergovernmental agreement between D158 and MCC.

“Essentially the vision for our Dual Degree Program is that Huntley 158 students will have the opportunity to earn an associate of arts degree concurrently with their high school diploma. So, in other words, what that means is that students in this program will be able to graduate Huntley High School and get their associate of arts degree at the same time,” Schlichter said.

The program is not expected to start in the 2021-2022 school year, though the district is hoping to begin identifying the first cohort of high school sophomores that would be onboarded starting the summer before their junior year.

Students interested in the Dual Degree Program will have to submit an application. Schlichter explained that in accordance with the district’s partnership with MCC, students will only be responsible for paying one-third of the cost of every credit hour they take.

To put that in perspective, the estimated cost of tuition and fees at MCC would typically be around $140 per credit hour. Though in this Dual Degree Program, students would only have to pay one-third of that cost, bringing the price down to around $46.60 per credit hour.

D158 estimates that the total cost to students for the full program would be around $2,000. However, that price could be lower or higher depending on the cost of books and supplies, as well as the number of MCC classes a student takes. The cost is much more affordable then pursuing an associates degree after graduating high school, which would typically cost over $6,000 at MCC.

Students that qualify for free and reduced lunch would have their tuition and fees waived. D158 would also cover the cost of books.

“We do believe that this could be a very beneficial program to some of our first-generation college students. Some of our underserved populations. In other words, some of our students that if they graduate Huntley High School and then kind of go off on their own to think about going to college, they might not have us there to be that cheerleader and really help them through it,” Schlichter said.

“Whereas if we can help families and students who may otherwise either not think or be intimidated to access college, if we can help them through a program like this, this can be really a great program for some of our equity focus and looking at some of our underserved students.”

Students in the program will have courses comprised of a combination of dual credit courses taken at the high school, alongside attending MCC classes directly on the college campus.

“It would be a collaborative cohort where we’re going to be assuming about 15 to 20 students per year in the cohort…Within that program of study, we would have our students mainly within classes with other high school students. We wanted to make sure that there wasn’t just kind of an open enrollment with MCC students because we do want to make sure that we keep our students safe and keep them on track,” Schlichter said.

Only Woodstock District 200 and Harvard District 50 have a partnership for the same type of program with MCC.

Unfortunately, students interested in the program do not qualify for financial aid, though Schlichter noted that Huntley High School is hoping to continue to add more dual credit course offerings so that students don’t have to take as many MCC courses.

The first full cohort is expected to begin the program in the summer of 2022. The BOE will continue the review process for the intergovernmental agreement at the next board meeting.