For the Student

Benefits for the Student

1. Earn both high school and college credit at the same time.
2. The courses and credits are on their GBC transcript and will transfer to other colleges.
3. Reduces the number of courses needed for a college degree after high school graduation.
4. Tuition fees may be lower if it is a Distance Education course (interactive video or online) or is subsidized by the high school.
5. Courses are challenging, with “college level” content and student expectations.
6. Introduces students to college while still at home and with their friends, increasing motivation to attend college after high school.

Disadvantages for the Student

1. College level content and student expectations may be a difficult adjustment for some students.
2. Failing may delay high school graduation.
3. Students are responsible for acquiring their own textbooks and materials, a major shift from high school classes where books are supplied by the school.
4. There may be the extra cost of covering the college fees.
5. College classes may conflict with extra curricular activities of the high school.
6. High School and GBC calendars don’t match and there may be conflicts with holidays and vacation breaks.

For the High School

Benefits for the High School

1. Enables the offering of higher level courses and greater variety of courses without hiring extra faculty. Enables some students to take classes that would normally have too low of enrollment to be offered at a high school.
2. Provides students with college experience, increasing motivation to attend college after high school.
3. May help reduce the class size of some high school courses by drawing off some students.
4. May reduce discipline problems for some students by giving them more challenging courses.
5. The high school still counts dual credit students in their enrollment figures.

Disadvantages for the High school

1. Scheduling students during the day for college courses may be problematic.
2. If high school faculty are permitted to teach college courses during the day, scheduling their classes may be problematic.

For Great Basin College

Benefits for GBC

1. Helps meet our mission of providing higher education to the residents of rural Nevada.
2. Increases enrollment or “capture rate” of students after high school graduation.
3. Provides increased diversity in GBC’s student body
4. GBC receives the benefit of a relatively stable population of student enrollment.
5. GBC often has extra class space that would be better utilized with the addition of capable high school students.

Disadvantages for GBC

1. High school students are not used to being responsible for themselves and require additional help in understanding college procedures & processes.
2. Parents of high school students do not always understand that they may not intervene on behalf of their children when enrolled in college classes.
3. Finding faculty willing to teach on the high school schedule is sometimes problematic.
4. The GBC and high school calendars are different and may cause problems during holidays and vacation periods.
5. Providing the full array of college services to students can be challenging, especially if they are not near a GBC site with permanent staff.

Return to the Dual Enrollment page.