So, what could you do with 1.4 million dollars? Better yet, how could you come up with that amount of money? Many of us are playing the Powerball this weekend in hopes of striking it rich. You also might be able to invest your money and grow your money to that figure. You can also be very frugal and save that amount of money over your lifetime. For parents at Penn-Trafford, they can save that amount by sending their children to our high school.
Recently I was talking with some superintendent friends of mine about how we can better “market” public schools. One idea was to calculate how much money the school district saves parents of our students who take Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment courses. The amount saved in our district is really staggering. To calculate the savings, we took the total number of A.P. (Advanced Placement) and Dual Enrollment courses taken by students. This number is large because we have students taking multiple courses. For Dual Enrollment, the school district has 269 students, or seats taken, in these courses through Pitt and 225 taken through LaRoche. This is a total of 494 courses taken for Dual Enrollment. The cost for our students is $55.00 per credit for Pitt classes. Pitt classes are 4 credits a piece. Our student cost for LaRoche credits is $46.50 per credit. LaRoche classes are 3 credits a piece. The school district has 337 students (again, one student may take multiple courses) taking AP courses. AP classes are worth 3 credits and cost $27.00 a credit. If you calculate the actual tuition rate for a regular college student at LaRoche and Pitt and compare it to what our students pay, the school district saves parents $981,000.000 in Dual Enrollment classes. If you take the average cost per credit for LaRoche and Pitt and compare it to what students pay for an AP class, the school district saves parents $495,390.00 on AP classes. So, for this academic year, the school district has saved parents $1,477,283.50 on tuition! That, my friends, is an amazing number!
My daughter, who graduated in 2010 from the Penn-Trafford high school, earned 38 college credits while still attending high school. Between, (I think it's called) College in the high school (with /thru Pitt,) dual enrollment and early enrollment, she more than completed her freshman year of college. Through smart planning, she checked out her desired college's requirements and made sure the courses she took fulfilled requirements. Think what that saved us! Now we did have to pay something out of pocket, but not nearly what we would have been paying.
ReplyDeleteNow, this was not ANY AP courses. With something like dual and early enrollment, I can see AP courses going by the way-side. Why predicate your entire college credit on 1 end-of-year exam, when you can have a more balanced set of assessments throughout the year to provide a more realistic report of a student's achievement?
I think, for many students, this hybrid model, can be the future of their high school career.
hey dr.butler guess what happen at penn middle school their was a bomb threat at our school today and mr.simpson evacuated us on time because this bomb threat for thank god i am so safe at my house right now
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