TEA Report Says:
Texas Public School Students Earned
2+ Million College Credit Hours in 2019-20
Despite the disruption to schools caused by the pandemic last spring, Texas public school students still managed to earn a record number of college credit hours during the 2019-20 school year, a new TEA report reflects.
The TEA’s College Credit Reports for School Year 2019-20 (available here) reflects that Texas public high school students for that school year earned a cumulative 2,067,239 college credit hours, a 172,115 (8 percent) increase from the 1,895,124 in college credit hours earned by their counterparts in 2018-19.
Overall, 2019-20 enrollments for courses for which high school students received college credit equaled 483,471 students, a 42,937 (9 percent) student enrollment increase from 2018-19.
Students earned, on average, a total of 4.3 college credit hours per student in 2019-20, unchanged from 2018-19. The report reflects that students in 2019-20 earned college credits in 621 individual courses.
The five overall highest enrollment courses for which students earned college credit are listed in this graphic.
CTE Students
Of the 483,471 students earning college credit in 2019-20, a total of 387,928 (80 percent) were identified as career and technical education students. CTE students earned 1,683,225 college credit hours at a rate that also equaled, on average, 4.3 college credit hours per student.
Texas public school students can earn up to 12 semester hours of college credit in a variety of ways, such as dual credit courses, AP and IB courses, and by directly taking approved college courses.
Limits, if any, on how many courses a high school student can take for college credit per year is strictly a local district decision.
The report provides data on a statewide, regional and per ISD/charter basis.
The TEA is required to produce the report annually and has done so since School Year 2011-12.