Early College Credit Programs

UIC enters into select partnerships with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to offer dual credit and dual enrollment courses, whereby students can earn UIC credit during their junior and/or senior year of high school.

These courses are offered in connection with UIC’s outreach and community engagement mission and via its commitment and partnership efforts with Chicago Public Schools. Particular early college credit initiatives focus on schools and areas of the city where few to no options are available to students to take dual credit and dual enrollment courses. Recent dual enrollment initiatives have been offered in partnership with UIC’s Office of Community Collaboration, which oversees UIC’s two recently-opened Neighborhood Centers in the North Lawndale and Auburn Gresham neighborhoods of Chicago. Students from high schools in these neighborhoods have received prioritized registration for an Introduction to Black Studies course and an Introduction to Public Health course.

Various models are used for dual credit and dual enrollment initiatives. One involves bringing CPS students to UIC’s campus to take courses that are taught by UIC faculty. Another model involves UIC granting a courtesy appointment to a CPS teacher who meets the university’s guidelines to teach a dual credit course, with the course being taught at the partnership high school. Under this model, a UIC faculty member is assigned to serve as a faculty liaison to the high school instructor, with guidance provided on curriculum, assessment, and administrative matters. Irrespective of the delivery model that is used, dual credit and dual enrollment courses utilize the same syllabus, learning expectations, assessment methods, and entry and exit requirements as the comparable course taught on campus to UIC students. Additionally, high school students taking UIC courses for early college credit are provided with the same affordances that UIC students are to succeed in a course academically; these includes access to resources like UIC Blackboard, the UIC Library’s electronic journal database, and the UIC Writing Center.