One approach to lowering college cost is to take college courses in high school. There are various ways of doing this with AP courses and dual-enrollment being the most popular. In AP courses, students experience instruction and then qualify for college credit based on whether they can earn a “competence score” on an standardized exam. Dual-enrollment courses count for college credit without the requirement of a passing score on an independent examination.
It has become difficult in some locations to hire qualified instructors. This challenge has become more acute when there are additional expectations of those who teach courses for college credit. According to this article from eSchool News, these expectations are making it difficult to find instructors qualified to teach courses for college credit:
The commission decided that college instructors should hold a master’s degree in the field they teach or have a master’s degree in another field and 18 credits in the field they teach by September 2017.
The issue of qualifications is controversial, but I can certainly see the issue of educator qualifications when student learning is not evaluated against external standards. This whole situation smacks of finding ways to “cheap out” – take college courses in high school to reduce college costs, lower standards for instructors so that qualified high school instructors will be easier to find. It seems reasonable to me that colleges required to accept dual-enrollment credits would have a say in what these courses require.