Running Start
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The Running Start program is an effort by the state of Washington to reward high-performing high school students by providing them with early admission to college.
Piloted in the early 1990s and officially approved to begin in the fall of 1993, the Running Start program offers up to two years of paid tuition at any state-run community college to high school juniors. Juniors who can pass the entrance exam for the local community college may take part or all of their coursework at the community college. Their tuition is fully covered by the state, and successfully passing a course earns a student both high school and college credit for the course.
The system was designed to make it possible for a motivated high schooler to take all their classes for their final two years of high school at the community college: at the end of those two years, the student would have completed the necessary credits for high school graduation, as well as having completed the necessary college credits to receive an associate's degree. In practice, many students choose to take only a few classes at the college, partly because of the difficulty of college coursework, and partly to keep from missing out on the social life at high school. Students are only eligible to have 18 credits per quarter paid for, and they may only have tuition covered in the fall, winter, and spring quarters of their junior and senior years in high school.
External links
- Running Start page, Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (http://www.k12.wa.us/CurriculumInstruct/RunningStart/default.aspx)
- The section of the Revised Code of Washington authorizing this program (http://www.leg.wa.gov/RCW/index.cfm?fuseaction=section§ion=28A.600.310)