How a boom in East Texas high schoolers taking college classes is transforming Kilgore College

Sabine High School students meet during a federal government class, on Oct. 15. The dual enrollment students will get both high school and college credit for passing this class. (Credit: Michael Cavazos for The Texas Tribune)

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LIBERTY CITY — Zachary Carnes is a government professor at Kilgore College but these days, he says, he feels more like a “traveling preacher.”

When he first started at the community college in East Texas, he stood in front of a wide array of adults, those who just graduated high school and those looking for a new direction in life. Now he finds himself driving in his pickup truck between high school campuses teaching a course on government to teenagers.

He often teaches out of multi-purpose classrooms. On Thursday afternoons at one high school, he typically scrambles to rearrange the desks before his students filter in.

“You adapt,” he said. “That’s what you do.”

More high school students are getting a jump on college through dual credit classes, which allows them to simultaneously earn high school and college credit. That’s because of a new state program that gives community colleges money for offering these classes to low-income students for free.

At Kilgore College, dual credit headcount has increased by 36.5% in the last academic year alone. High school students in East Texas now make up a majority of Kilgore College’s student body.

The jump in dual credit enrollment is changing the identity of community colleges across the state, pushing educators to rethink how to effectively teach their classes to meet the needs of teens and to encourage them onto higher education paths after they get their high school diploma.

For years, Texas has been a nationwide leader in dual credit, as educators tout it as a way to get students exposed to college early on. Research shows that dual enrollment has been linked to higher rates of educational attainment and timely degree completion.

When colleges struggled to hold onto students during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of high school students participating in dual credit was so great that it carried overall enrollment numbers in Texas.

Last year, Texas legislators changed how community colleges were financed to acknowledge the work community colleges had already been doing to set high school students up for college. The colleges now earn state dollars when high school students earn at least 15 college credit hours on their campuses.

The new funding system also included an optional program that made dual credit more accessible for low-income students. Participating community colleges qualified for extra money when they allowed high school students who qualify for free and reduced-priced lunch to take classes for free. Other students saw a discount on their dual credit classes, with a cap on costs at about $55 per credit hour.

The program, known as the Financial Aid for Swift Transfer, “is changing the demographics of dual credit. It’s given an opportunity to lots of students that would not, from a financial standpoint, have had the ability to sign up,” said Brandon Walker, the dean of dual credit at Kilgore College.

More than 250,000 students participated in dual credit last year through the program while their institutions got a total of nearly $80 million in funding, according to Sarah Keyton, the interim commissioner of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

As dual credit students become a larger slice of community college life, college leaders are confronting how the student experience is changing.

Kilgore College professor Zachary Carnes teaches a dual credit federal government class, on Oct. 15, out of a multi-purpose Sabine High School classroom in Liberty City. He leaves the music theory notes on the whiteboard up when diving into his lesson on how money influences political representation. (Credit: Michael Cavazos for The Texas Tribune)

The campus in Kilgore is quiet, as more adult students take classes online and more instructors teach at high schools. Walker says the college is seeing an emerging need to facilitate the virtual student experience, whether that be Zoom social activities or connecting dual credit students to campus groups like the honor society.

Instructors are also increasingly examining how to best shape classes to meet the needs of high school students, many of whom are still deciding if they want to pursue a degree.

“To teach a college course really well for high school students, it really is a blending of what high school teachers know and do every day, which is that classroom management working with high school students…and what college faculty members know and do every day, which is that content expertise,” said John Fink with the Community College Research Center.

Carnes, the government professor, likes the challenges of engaging students getting accustomed to the rigors of college-level coursework.

To break the ice with this younger generation of students, Carnes has made references to brat summer, a nod to British singer Charli XCX's hit album. He doesn’t have Tik Tok but his wife will loop him in.

Carnes knows his high school students are still trying to figure out how to approach professors and are adjusting to how college can feel more independent. So he has started dedicating class time for exam review sessions with his high school students, so they have structured spaces to ask questions.

In a recent class in October, Carnes pulled up the midterm study guide on the projector and scanned the room for signs of confusion. When the students did not have any hands raised, the professor came up with his own questions: Who can tell me the difference between confederate, federal and unitary systems? How do we distinguish de jure segregation from de facto segregation?”

He’s waiting to talk to his students about their plans after high school. At a time when young people are questioning the value of college, dual credit instructors like Carnes can be best positioned to have a conversation about what they can gain from pursuing a higher degree.

The college is also starting to consider how they can utilize dual credit classroom spaces to share information that breaks down how to pay for college.

“I certainly see our role as we come into contact with more and more dual credit students…letting them know it’s OK to go to community college for a couple years,” said Carnes, who took some classes at Tyler Junior College before attending a four-year university. “That’s the message that I’ve been trying to get out there to my students.”

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

Disclosure: Kilgore College has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.