From selecting required classes to choosing electives, students have many options when creating their class schedules. For some incoming juniors and seniors, those options are even more vast as they have the opportunity to take Dual Credit (DC) classes through Metro Community College (Metro). But, in contrast to what some students may have heard, they will not have to pay for DC classes for the 2025-26 school year.
During the registration presentations held by the counselors in mid-November, students, depending on the session, were informed that they would be required to pay for DC classes next school year, however, a meeting was held by Metro in November that determined that the tuition for DC classes would be covered for another year for GPS.
Before the pandemic, DC classes cost 50 dollars with the addition of fees for certain classes, but Metro provided a grant in 2020 that covered the costs of those classes, minus their fees.
“They had written a grant just to be able to attract more high school students, because sometimes when they have high school students, then those students carry on to either attend school there or kind of the name gets out there a lot more,” counselor Lisa Hatch said.
The grant was extended for the same reason, but as of now, it is only extended for the 2025-26 school year.
On the student side, not having to pay for DC classes can provide benefits.
“I think it’s a good thing because I don’t fully see the point in paying if we would’ve had to,” junior Madilon Sedillo-Dougall said. “They [administrators] aren’t hiring college professors or anything to teach the classes it’s just classes that could possibly get us credit for college even though some of the DC classes don’t transfer over.”
DC classes are not available to all students. Juniors and seniors who have taken the math or reading asset test and passed, or received a passing score on the pre-ACT are eligible for DC classes. Without paying tuition, students can take classes without worrying about the cost.
“The benefit is that kids filling almost their entire schedules up with DC classes and electives wouldn’t have to pay for their entire schedule,” Sedillo-Dougall said. “They’d have to pay for art classes, shop classes and any other electives they choose to take with materials along with all of their core DC classes so they’d be paying for almost all most of their schedule and we go to public school so that should not be the case.”
