Pell Grants Will Help High-school Students Pay for College Courses
High-school students taking college courses for credit will be able to receive Pell Grants for the first time, under an experiment the Education Department announced on Friday. The announcement occurred just two weeks after the department unveiled another pilot that will allow federal grants and loans to flow to educational-technology companies that team up with colleges to offer coding boot camps, MOOCs, short-term certificates, and other credentials. More than 1.4 million high-school students took college courses for credit, a process known as dual enrollment, in 2010-11, according to department statistics. Some research suggests that low-income and first-generation students who participate in dual enrollment and early-college high schools (a highly structured dual-enrollment program) are more likely to enroll in college and graduate.