By Charlie Boss

The Columbus Dispatch Friday September 20, 2013 6:44 AM

Courtney Hergesheimer | DISPATCH

South-Western high-school students earned credit that would give them a jump-start on classes at Columbus State Community College, but then they failed to follow through.

Many of them applied to Columbus State in the spring only to not show up in the fall.

So officials at South-Western and Columbus State spent the past two years guiding the students into the college.

High-school students can now take Columbus State's entrance assessment at their school. They visit here campus to meet with advisers, tour classrooms and talk to college students. And scholarship deadlines have been extended.

It has paid off.

This year, 44 South-Western students completed agreements with Columbus State that spell out how many college credits they've earned for their high-school coursework. Only five students made those agreements last year.

This year, 87 students received scholarships that Columbus State awards only to students who participated in high-school career-technical programs and who plan to continue them in college. That's three times the number of students from 2012.

"We tell students, 'You're already here. You've got the transferrable credits,'" said Martin Maliwesky, dean of enrollment services at Columbus State. "The key is the coursework they took in high school can translate to college credit to give them a jump-start on a college degree. That saves both time and money to finish an associate's degree."

He said the college tested the outreach efforts with South-Western and now wants to employ the same approach with other districts.

Gail Schwartz, senior vice president for the American Association of Community Colleges in Washington, D.C., lauds the approach.

"States have been working on this for years, and it always seems to be fraught with obstacles," she said. "The smooth transition from high school to post-secondary, it is right up there as one of the most-important issues we are all looking at."

Officials at South-Western and Columbus State acknowledge that there's more work to do.

This past spring, 329 seniors were enrolled in the 12 career-technical programs that qualify for credit at Columbus State. Yet, 13 percent of those students pursued agreements with the college this school year.

That's a big gain over last year, but it's still not where they want to be.

"We don't think we're at the end of the road, but we're on the right road," Maliwesky said.

Sam Thompson wasn't keen on Columbus State when he started considering colleges. As a senior at South-Western Career Academy, he was leaning toward studying to become an audio engineer at the Recording Workshop, a music- and audio-production school in Chillicothe.

But over the course of his senior year, he learned more about Columbus State. He was relieved to take the college's Compass entrance exam in school.

During a campus tour, he was impressed with the quality of the students' work in the interactive-media program. He worked with a college adviser and discovered he'd already earned eight college-credit hours for his high-school work. His high-school counselor urged him to apply for scholarships, and he qualified for two at Columbus State.

The pathway was clear.

"They were laying out all the pieces, and it was really helpful," said Thompson, who plans to earn an associate's degree in interactive media. "It feels good to save money."

cboss@dispatch.com

@cvrboss

Source: Dispatch