WELLESLEY HILLS (January 19, 2016) – MassBay Community College is pleased to announce a new dual enrollment partnership with three area high schools in Framingham and Natick. The new partnership, called Partner High School Dual Enrollment, is funded by the Commonwealth Dual Enrollment Program (CDEP) is free for those students who qualify and participate from these partner high schools.
“Taking college-level courses while in high school helps students to begin the transition to college and earn credits that are transferrable to our public colleges and many private universities,” said MassBay Interim President Yves Salomon-Fernandez. “This is a great collaboration with our local high schools that we want to expand throughout MassBay’s service area.”
Starting January 2016, Framingham High School and Keefe Technical High School in Framingham will join Natick High School as a partner high school in the Partner High School Dual Enrollment program at MassBay. Natick High School has been participating in the program since September 2015, offering participating students college-level English classes at the high school. In January 2016, Natick High will offer college-level Math and English II, Keefe Tech will offer college-level Introduction to Sociology, and Framingham High School will offer Introduction to Communications. Framingham High and Keefe Tech students will take their courses at the MassBay Framingham campus.
“We are very excited to launch this partnership to our service area high schools,” said MassBay Assistant Vice President of Enrollment Management Lisa Slavin. “Our hope for this partnership is to introduce students who are first in their families to attend college, low-income students and students interested in high demand career areas like STEM to the future career possibilities when a college degree is obtained. We want local students and families to become acclimated to and comfortable with MassBay and really see how their local community college can work for them, even as early as high school. We want more high school students to take advantage of dual enrollment and early college programs and get a jump on earning college credits.”
"We are thrilled that our students who are preparing for college will have the opportunity to take an actual college course at Mass Bay Community College in Sociology while still in high school,” said Keefe Regional Technical School Superintendent-Director Jonathan Evans. “Both the experience and the credits earned will be extremely valuable to them as they prepare for a bright future. We truly appreciate MassBay Community College making this opportunity available to our students.”
"We are excited about this new development in our partnership with MassBay,” said Framingham High Principal Elyse Torbert. “The dual enrollment program will empower students who may not realize that attending college is a viable option for them. We are grateful to MassBay for this opportunity and look forward to continuing our work together."
MassBay also offers the Traditional Dual Enrollment for qualifying high school and home-schooled students to enroll in college courses. Participating students may receive college and high school credits for their course work and may register for full-time or part-time schedules. Traditional Dual Enrollment students attend classes on the Framingham or Wellesley Hills campuses.
The Commonwealth Dual Enrollment Partnership provides increased awareness and opportunities for Massachusetts high school students to take college-level courses and earn credit toward high school completion and their future college degrees. This is a state-funded program, which is managed and supported by the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, providing opportunities to a greater number of students who might have limited or no access to an early college experience.
For more information on MassBay Community College; www.MassBay.edu.
For more information on the Department of Higher Education Commonwealth Dual Enrollment Partnership (CDEP); http://www.mass.edu/strategic/read_cdep.asp
MassBay Community College was recently ranked by the Brookings Institution as one of the top schools for value added and earned salaries in the workforce. Ranked #1 for 2-year colleges in Massachusetts, #2 in New England and ranked #16 nationally. The College’s facilities in Wellesley Hills, Framingham and Ashland house day, evening and weekend classes that meet the needs of degree-seeking students and career minded life-long learners. Online options provide convenience and allow faculty to facilitate the learning process. Since its founding in 1961, MassBay has been accredited by several governing bodies and strives to meet the needs of the diverse local communities it serves.