Giving Compass' Take:

• Tara García Mathewson reports that Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, a dual enrollment high school, is connecting students to college. 

• How can funders help to build dual enrollment programs? How can equity be baked into programs like this? 

• Find out who benefits from dual enrollment programs. 

Six Florida high school students are spending this year at the prestigious Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, learning data science techniques and how to use them to analyze images of the brain. The students are in a pilot class of what will become the Max Planck Academy, set to enroll between 35 and 50 high school juniors in 2020.

These students, admitted based on the strength of their applications to the public, tuition-free academy, will get an individualized course load based on their interests, as well as the chance to participate in active research alongside doctoral students and scientists at the institute. After their final two years of high school, the students will graduate with a diploma and an associate degree.

Early-college high schools, also known as dual enrollment schools, exist in many forms around the country, giving teenagers a chance to accelerate their educations by pursuing two credentials at once. Particularly when these schools serve low-income teens and others who are underrepresented on college campuses, they represent a powerful way to increase college access and success, generally at no cost to students. And in partnerships with local businesses, or in FAU’s case, researchers, they can fast-track students’ careers. That’s what Herbst expects from the new academy.

Read the full article about the opportunity of dual enrollment by Tara García Mathewson at The Hechinger Report.