College Articulation: Shortening the path to college completion

It’s time to celebrate. Thousands of local students just shortened their path to college completion.

By Matt Wells

Because of this incredible opportunity called Articulation, students at our high schools are able to earn college credits at Barstow Community College (BCC) and Victor Valley College for their top notch work in their Career Technical Education courses. From Aviation to Culinary, Medical to Welding and everything in between, students from 9th through 12th and even adult education submit their grades to each of these colleges after crushing it in the classroom. The students apply to the college (Free), submit their A or B course grade through their school (Free) and earn a college transcript with the A or B in the equivalent course at the college (Free). When they’re ready, students can continue their education at one of those colleges and can skip the first course or two in related certificate and degree programs. This means saved money and shortened time to careers.

I’ll be honest: with COVID shaking up the school system, I anticipated we’d see a dip in our articulation numbers this year. While the process sounds easy, there’s a ton of leg work that goes into supporting all of the college applications, the completion of the requisite coursework, submitting the grades to the colleges, etc. I’m so happy I was wrong.

As a numbers nerd, let me geek out and share with you some of the data that gets me all fired up.

1. 3,558 college grades were issued: 167 at BCC; 3,391 at VVC

2. These numbers represent a 98.81% increase at BCC from last year and a 24.03% increase at VVC.

Check out this graph of VVC grades over the last few years! This increase is significant!

3. We have some kids who earned credits in 2 or even 3 different college classes. But, I checked to see how many individual students earned credits: 3,138! That represents just over 13% of all the 9th-12th grade students in our districts. 13% of all high school students are getting college credits while in high school through articulation. And this doesn’t include Dual Enrollment or AP exams, which are other avenues to college credits.

In all, students earned credits in 34 different VVC courses. Although much smaller than Victor Valley College, Barstow College packs a punch with students earning credits in four courses.

I’m so proud of my colleagues at our districts and at the colleges. They’ve worked so hard supporting students through the application process, helping one another through the grades submission efforts, and collaborating together to revise and improve procedures year to year. While the results this year were amazing, there’s nothing to indicate next year won’t be even better. I’m also proud of the industry partners who’ve stepped up and encouraged students to take this opportunity and run with it. And I’m most proud of the students who have worked their tails off in their classes, earned top marks, and seized their well-earned college grades, opening up the options for their future.

Thank you to each and every one of you. Keep crushing it. I can’t wait to see what happens this next year.

Matt