In Dallas, Connecting College and Careers to High School Talent

Mohammad Faroz graduated from high school in the spring of 2020 with a diploma, an Associates of Applied Science in Networking Administration, and a Cisco Certified Networking Associate Certification. Even more importantly, he got a job at Infosys straight out of high school, in the middle of a pandemic.

Now Mohammad is enrolled in the University of Texas at Dallas in a computer science program while he works part-time.

In some places, a student might be coached to choose either a technical or an academic pathway, but Mohammad found a way to do both before he even earned his high school diploma.

Mohammad took advantage of the Pathways in Technology Early College High Schools (P-TECH) that delivers an associate degree—tuition-free for students. P-TECH allows high school students to choose a career pathway and take college-level courses that provide the academic, technical, and workplace skills that are attractive to employers.

In fall 2016, Dallas College—in partnership with the Dallas Independent School District—opened eight P-TECH campuses. Since then, the project has expanded to 18 P-TECH campuses each with its own sponsoring industry partner. In 2021, more than 10 percent of Dallas seniors graduated high school with an associate degree.

But there was a problem. Like the one Mohammad finished, most of the programs end in an Associate of Applied Science degree that, while credit-bearing and valuable in the labor market, is not designed to transfer to a four-year degree program.

Soon, high school students and their parents were wondering why the credit they earned towards their associate degree didn’t always count toward the bachelor's degree they wanted to pursue.

Dallas does offer an Associate of Arts degree that is designed to transfer to the four-year public colleges in Texas but those degrees have mixed value in the labor market on their own. Since Dallas College wanted to be sure high school graduates were ready for work and, if they so chose, the path to more quickly and affordably earn a bachelor’s degree, the college had to get creative.

The newly created Dallas College Academic Incubator set to work creating 18-credit hour career and technical certificates embedded within the Associate of Arts degree. Students who complete these CTE certificates also earn industry-recognized credentials, which tend to carry more sway in the labor market than college-designed certificates on their own.

Pairing these newly created certificates with the traditional associate degree core offers students the best of both worlds: competitiveness in the labor market and the ability to transfer to a four-year degree program when and if they choose.

We know that many students need to start a career and earn money before they can afford a bachelor's degree. This innovation in Dallas could be replicated across transfer degree programs, making them more valuable in the labor market while also allowing seamless transfer to a four-year degree.

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