Identifying Best Practices to Improve Access to PSEO

Abstract

People For PSEO is a nonprofit organization that advocates for Minnesota’s Post-Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) program, and works to inform high school students of this opportunity. The PSEO program is a dual enrollment program offering for high school students in Minnesota to earn both high school and college credits simultaneously at no cost to the student. Minnesota statute prescribes a funding formula and eligibility criteria for schools whose students enroll in the PSEO program. Outside of these statutes, schools have too much autonomy in program implementation which leads to some institutions discouraging students from participating as shown in the People for PSEO report on the information gap (Jackson, 2022). In Minnesota, inconsistent implementation of the PSEO program across the state has led to too few students utilizing the program; therefore, there is a need for more state guidance on implementation. Dual enrollment programs in other states are linked to a variety of positive outcomes, including higher rates of high school and college graduation, increased enrollment in a postsecondary institution after high school, and decreased time to degree completion, which lowers student debt loads (Zinth and Barnett, 2018). The main barriers to increased enrollment in the PSEO program are communication, eligibility requirements, and funding.