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Illinois regulates the quality of dual credit rather than its price. The Dual Credit Quality Act, 110 ILCS 27, sets instructor credentials and forces a school district and a community college district to negotiate a partnership agreement. The Community College Board rules handle credit hour claims, and the agreement decides what a family pays.
For what the program costs and who is eligible, start at Dual credit in Illinois. This page is the paper trail underneath it.
The statute
110 ILCS 27
Dual Credit Quality Act .
The Act is about whether a dual credit course is a real college course. It sets the academic credentials a fully qualified instructor holds, a master’s degree in the discipline taught or a master’s in another discipline plus at least eighteen graduate hours in the one being taught, and it creates the Dual Credit Committee. Recent amendments also require a school district and a community college district to each designate a liaison and to begin negotiating a partnership agreement within sixty calendar days of a request, which is the provision a district can be held to when it has been slow to respond.
The administrative rule
23 Ill. Adm. Code 1501
Illinois Community College Board system rules .
The Community College Board’s administrative rules, and the part of Illinois dual credit that decides whether a college gets paid for a course. Section 1501.507 governs credit hour claims, including the midterm certification a student has to be on for the course to count toward the college’s state funding. It is invisible to most families and is the reason a college cares about attendance certification in a high school classroom.
The agreement between the school and the college
Model partnership agreement
Illinois Community College Board, Dual Credit .
The document a district and a college sign, built from the Board’s model. It is where the local answers sit: which courses are offered, who teaches them, who pays tuition and fees, and how a student registers. Illinois has no statewide free-tuition rule for dual credit, so a family asking what a course costs is asking what this agreement says.
Agency guidance
ISBE summary of the Act
Illinois State Board of Education, Dual Credit Quality Act .
The K-12 board’s condensed version of the Act for districts, useful when a high school and a college disagree about whether a teacher is qualified to teach a course for college credit. It restates the credential rule and the partnership obligations in a few pages.
Who administers it
These are the offices that answer a question about Illinois law rather than about one school or one campus. A district and a college can both be wrong about a state rule, and these pages are where the state's own position is published.
- Illinois Community College Board · Publishes the model partnership agreement and the system rules.
- Illinois State Board of Education · Administers the school district side and summarises the Act for districts.
- Illinois General Assembly · Where the Dual Credit Quality Act is published in full.
Frequently asked
Does Illinois make dual credit free?
No statewide rule does. Cost is set in the partnership agreement between the school district and the community college district, which is the document to ask a high school for.
Who can teach a dual credit course?
Under the Act, an instructor with a master’s degree in the discipline taught, or a master’s in another discipline plus at least eighteen graduate hours in the discipline being taught.
What if a district will not start a partnership?
Recent amendments require each side to name a liaison and begin negotiating within sixty calendar days of the initial request, which gives a parent a date to point at.
Where does the midterm certification requirement come from?
From the Community College Board system rules at 23 Ill. Adm. Code 1501.507, which govern the credit hours a college may claim for state funding.
Sources
- Dual Credit Quality Act, 110 ILCS 27
- ICCB System Rules Manual · section 1501.507, credit hour claims
- Illinois Community College Board, Dual Credit
- ISBE, Dual Credit Quality Act summary
Rules change. These were checked September 2026. Confirm the current version with your school before you act on any of it.
Reading the Illinois rules with a decision in front of you?
Save this page and the citations sit next to the state's deadlines on your own My FastTrack page; the Illinois guide saves separately. Which courses to take, in which order, so the credits still count at the college your teen ends up at, is the part we do with families.