Running Start sees enrollment jump

High school students across Montana are increasingly taking advantage of Flathead Valley Community College’s Running Start program for high school students, prompting a 60 percent increase in program participation over the past three years.

Running Start, a dual enrollment program that began in the early 1990s, allows high school students to begin earning credits toward their college education before graduating at little to no cost to them. The program aims to increase high school students’ chances of pursuing and succeeding in their future college educations.

Any Montana resident high school student can earn up to six credits free of charge and can continue taking additional credits at half the regular price.

This year, the program offered 56 course sections in 22 high schools across the state, with a primary focus on reaching more rural areas.

The financial incentive, combined with the broad reach of the program has enabled FVCC to dramatically increase participation, according to Program Coordinator Beth Romain.

“I think a part of that is we’ve worked really hard to meet students where they’re at and offer them this opportunity within their high school,” Romain said.

When Romain took over leadership of Running Start nearly 14 years ago, she said she walked into a program with major financial and accessibility limitations for students. Around 100 students were enrolled at that time.

“In a sense, it was a have and have-not program,” she said.

High school students, particularly those in rural areas of the state, could neither afford the tuition nor the travel expenses involved in taking dual enrollment courses on campus at FVCC.

Beginning in 2012, the college’s board of trustees began making changes to the program, opening up access to six free credits to residents of Lincoln and Flathead counties.

Within the last year, the board decided to further extend that access to all Montana state residents.

Rather than requiring students to attend courses on the FVCC campus, the school also began hiring instructors within the high schools where students wanted to participate and offering online the same curriculum offered on campus.

By spring 2016, enrollment numbers for the program had risen to 440 students. This spring, the program has 720 students statewide.

“That’s 720 students that have learned to navigate the college process, learned college expectation, all before they graduate high school,” Romain said.

According to Amber Paulson, FVCC’s director of student services, many of the students who have enrolled in the program from rural high schools are first-generation college students.

In addition to introducing students to the possibility of an affordable college education, Paulson said the program also pushes students toward continuing their education at FVCC.

Before enrolling in Running Start, high school students must first apply and be accepted to FVCC, eliminating one more step as they transition from high school to college.

Once enrolled, students can choose from one of the courses currently offered within their own high schools. Courses are based on each school’s needs and its students’ interests.

For those able to travel to campus, FVCC opens up all 100-level, or first year courses to high school students in every program from welding to biotechnology.

Romain said the college advisers, who play a key role in steering students toward classes that fit their interests and educational goals, encourage high-schoolers to start with general education courses in order to gain an idea of which education path to pursue.

“It’s been really neat to see students get excited who never really saw college as being an option,” Romain said.

All credits offered through the Running Start program are transferable to FVCC and all Montana universities, cutting down on the overall amount of time and money spent in college for participating students.

A study released by the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education, a department of the Montana University System, also linked higher college success rates to high school students who participate in dual enrollment classes.

The report, published in 2016, stated that 63 percent of high school students earning dual enrollment credit enter the Montana University System as college students.

Dual enrollment students also performed higher in key success areas, showing a 16 percent higher rate of first year retention, higher freshman grade-point averages, and more credits earned the first year of college.

In addition to six free credits, high school students can also take advantage of the free Summer Experience, a condensed college semester offering various first-year courses over five weeks for free on the FVCC campus.

For more information about the Running start program, visit https://www.fvcc.edu/runningstart or contact Beth Romain at 406-756-3923 or eromain@fvcc.edu.

For more information about the Summer Experience, visit https://www.fvcc.edu/summerexperience.

Reporter Mary Cloud Taylor can be reached at 758-4459 or mtaylor@dailyinterlake.com.