Dual Credit and College Credit

All dual credit courses are college courses. If the homeschool parent decides to place a completed college course on the homeschool transcript, it can be considered dual credit because the same course satisfies both a high school requirement and a college requirement. For us, taking college courses as adolescents was a natural progression.

As our homeschool study moved from one learning level to the next, the subjects started to become college-level. Our parents wanted us to earn college credit because it provided a good curriculum and it could satisfy up to 75% of our college requirements. When we were nine, our parents started researching Universities and alternative credit options so we could begin college courses at age 10. From then on, we started earning college credits. There are three types of credit that we used towards our college degree. First we earned credits from  Arizona State University (ASU). Second we earned alternative college credit by taking exams, and also we earned alternative college credit by taking courses.

College Credit as a Homeschooler

Typically, American high school students earn dual credit by taking classes at junior colleges, earning both high school and college credit. This method of earning college credit is preferred because colleges, including junior colleges, are accredited and will typically accept each other's courses. Our first dual credits were earned at Arizona State University (ASU). We did not have to be accepted at ASU because they offer a program called Universal Learner https://ulc.asu.edu/ that has open enrollment and is available worldwide. The ASU program was a great way to get started on college classes because it charges a low enrollment fee to take a course, and only if you pass can you pay a higher cost to get the college credits. For a semester, we signed up for two courses that we had prepared for, College Algebra and Principles of Programming. We scored A's on both courses, so we paid the final fee to get college credit. This was a great boost because we knew from then on that if we studied hard, we could get through college.

 

The advantage of taking college courses to transfer to a later college is that they are the most widely accepted credits by other colleges. The disadvantages are that most courses are not self-paced and are usually more expensive than alternative credit options. Also, colleges may have enrollment requirements and age restrictions that limit availability.

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