by Danielle Nadler

About 70 Loudoun high school students earned tuition-free college credit last school year, and another 250 are expected to do the same starting this fall.

When colleges are charging as much as $400 per high school dual enrollment course, Loudoun County Public Schools’ partnership with Richard Bland College to offer students an option of a half dozen courses for free has caught the attention of federal lawmakers.

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) invited Kevin Terry, director of guidance at the year-old Rock Ridge High School, and three Loudoun students to share the dual enrollment success story on a panel on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

Petersburg-based Richard Bland waives the students’ tuition fee, and contends that more colleges should be doing the same because school divisions provide the instructors and the classroom space.

The panel discussion, held July 15, was meant to promote a pair of Senate and House bills—Go to High School, Go to College Act of 2015—that would allow students to use Pell Grants to cover the cost of earned college credits in high school.

Warner pointed to the more than 250 students who are signed up for tuition-free courses at Rock Ridge this fall as an example for others to follow.

He said he learned firsthand as governor of Virginia that high schools and colleges spend more time competing for state dollars than collaborating for the betterment of students.

“The model has always been, high school for four years, college for four years. Is there not some ability to combine efforts and collaborate between colleges and high schools?” he said. “We’ve got to take on the issue of student debt, which is robbing first generation college-goers from success.”

Allowing students to use Pell Grants early to pay for those credits is one step that can be taken toward reining in students’ mounting student loans, he added.

Pell Grants provides a maximum of $5,775 for low-income college students.

The panel of educators and lawmakers who spoke during last week’s briefing said that giving would-be first generation college students a taste of undergraduate course work while they have the support system offered in high school shows them that they can be successful in college.

“We see it as an opportunity to start students on a path to college while we are there to help guide them,” Terry said. “Far too often we’re seeing students deferring their dreams because of the cost of college. We want to remove those financial barriers.”

U.S. Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH-2), co-sponsor of the Senate bill and a self-described fiscal conservative, said the legislation would mean Pell Grants would be used more wisely because students who graduate from high school with already-earned college credits are more likely to complete college.

“Frankly, that’s one of the problems with Pell Grants. A lot of young people are using those and not getting a degree,” he said. “We need to be sure this money is focused and targeted to the maximum extent possible to get kids through college, earning a degree and actually getting a job.”

Noah Moore-Sobel, a rising senior at Rock Ridge High School, and two of his classmates were touted at the hearing as evidence of the success of programs that offer tuition-free college credits to high schoolers.

Moore-Sobel said he wouldn’t have taken the Richard Bland physics course if it cost him the typical $24.26 per credit. That’s how much Northern Virginia Community College, Loudoun public schools’ largest provider of dual enrollment courses, charged last school year. NVCC’s fee will drop to $10 per credit next school year.

“I’d take an AP class instead,” Moore-Sobel said.

AP courses are tuition free, but if students want college credit, they must score well on an $80 exam at the end of the course. Even still, Moore-Sobel said some colleges and universities will not accept AP credits—his older brother experienced this firsthand—while most institutions in the region will accept dual enrollment credits earned through Virginia colleges.

Armed with both dual enrollment credits and AP credits, Moore-Sobel has set a goal of earning a college degree in three years.

“That would mean saving money and starting a job earlier,” he said.

And, his mother Kate Moore added, paying off student loans earlier.

When she was in her mid- to late-20s, most in her generation were looking at buying their first homes because they didn’t have thousands of dollars in school loans to pay off.

College tuition and fees today are 559 percent higher than in 1985, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Millennials should be buying their first home right about now but they can’t because they’re in so much debt. That’s not just a burden on them but our economy,” Moore said. “This is a great vehicle to change that.”