Dual Credit in New Mexico: the law behind it

The statute

NMSA 1978 § 21-1-1.2

Dual credit for high school and post-secondary classes . Subsections B, C, D, E, F, and G.

The section to read first, because it settles eligibility and money in about two pages. Subsection B opens the program to a school-age student enrolled in at least half the minimum course requirements approved by the Public Education Department, or receiving at least half of instruction at a private, home, or bureau of Indian education school, with permission from the counselor, principal, or head administrator. Subsection C lets a student who qualified in the fall or winter carry that eligibility into the following summer. Subsection D puts the required textbooks and course supplies on the high school, and has the student return them at the end of the course. Subsection E requires a participating public institution or tribal college to waive all general fees, while subsection F only directs the Higher Education Department to use the funding formula to encourage those institutions to waive tuition, which is the softer of the two commitments. Subsection G is the instruction to both departments to write the rule that fills in the detail.

The administrative rule

6.30.7 NMAC

Public Education Department, Dual Credit . Parts 6.30.7.8, 6.30.7.11, and 6.30.7.13.

The rule the statute ordered, and the place where the tuition promise becomes a duty. Part 6.30.7.8 lists what the postsecondary institution agrees to in the master agreement, including waiving all general fees, waiving tuition for dual credit students, approving the enrollment form course by course each semester, and delivering final grades in time for graduation decisions. The same part puts the textbooks on the district and requires the district to record the college grade unchanged on the high school transcript, which is the sentence behind a college C landing on a high school record. Part 6.30.7.11 says there is no state limit on credits in a term and sets three postsecondary credit hours equal to one high school unit, with remedial, developmental, and physical education activity courses ruled out. Part 6.30.7.13 still reads that a home school or private school student pays the full cost of the college courses, language the department has not revisited since 2010.

5.2.4 NMAC

Higher Education Department, geographic areas of responsibility .

The rule the Higher Education Department lists alongside its dual credit material, and the reason a district usually has one obvious college partner rather than a choice of five. It assigns each two-year public institution a geographic area where it holds the exclusive right to meet lower division needs, which shapes which campus a high school can sign a master agreement with for on-site courses. Nothing in it mentions dual credit by name, so read it as a map of who serves your area rather than as a source of program rules.

The agreement between the school and the college

Dual credit master agreement

Public Education Department, master agreement and request form .

The signed document behind a seat in a course. A district and a college complete the uniform master agreement, attach an appendix naming the eligible courses, and file the executed copy with the department within ten days of approval. The student-level paperwork is the dual credit request form, which the high school and the college both have to sign before a registration counts as dual credit. Asking the counselor which colleges the district has agreements with, and for the course appendix attached to each, answers more than browsing a college catalog will.

Agency guidance

Dual Credit Program

Public Education Department, Dual Credit Program .

The department page a family works from. It carries the request form, the master agreement documents, and the state-issued unique student ID now called the Nova ID, which a public or charter student obtains through the school and a private or home school student obtains from the college dual credit office or from the department directly. It also states the cost split in plain terms: public colleges waive tuition, districts buy instructional materials, and families cover course-specific fees and transportation.

Dual Credit, Higher Education Department

Higher Education Department, Dual Credit .

The college-side reading of the same program, and the page that names the governing documents in one list: Section 21-1-1.2 NMSA 1978, Senate Bill 158 on dual credit program parity, rule 6.30.7 NMAC from the Public Education Department, and rule 5.2.4 NMAC from this department. It repeats the three conditions a student has to meet and states that families are responsible for special course fees and possibly transportation.

How it got here

Section 21-1-1.2 was added in 2007 and amended in 2008, 2010, 2014, and 2015. The 2014 amendment, which the Higher Education Department labels Senate Bill 158 on dual credit program parity, rewrote the eligibility subsection so that private school, home school, and bureau of Indian education students sit inside the same program as public school students. Rule 6.30.7 NMAC was last amended in August 2010, which is why its home school part still describes an arrangement the statute changed four years later.

Who administers it

These are the offices that answer a question about New Mexico 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.

• New Mexico Public Education Department, Dual Credit Program · Writes the rule, collects the master agreements, and issues the Nova ID a student enrolls with.
• New Mexico Higher Education Department · Handles the college side, including the funding formula that carries the tuition waiver.
• State Records Center and Archives, Title 6 Chapter 30 Part 7 · Where the dual credit rule is published, with its amendment history printed at the end of each part.

Frequently asked

Does the statute itself make tuition free?

Not in those words. Subsection E requires a participating institution to waive all general fees, and subsection F directs the Higher Education Department to encourage tuition waivers through the funding formula. The tuition waiver becomes a duty in rule 6.30.7 NMAC, among the things a postsecondary institution agrees to in the master agreement.

Who has to buy the textbooks?

The high school the student primarily attends, under subsection D. That same subsection requires the student to return the textbooks and unused supplies when the course ends or the student withdraws, which is worth knowing before anything gets written in.

The rule says home school students pay. Which document is current?

The statute. Part 6.30.7.13 NMAC dates from an amendment filed in 2010, and the 2014 amendment to Section 21-1-1.2 extended the program to home school and private school students. Department guidance now describes how those students obtain a Nova ID through the college or the department, so a family told otherwise can point at both.

Is there a limit on how many dual credit courses a student may take?

Part 6.30.7.11 NMAC says there is no state limit on the number of credits in an academic term, provided the student stays eligible. The two-courses-a-semester figure families hear is departmental guidance about sequencing rather than a cap written into the rule.

What happens if a college refuses to enroll a student?

The rule gives the college and the district each their own student appeals process, and gives each of them a further right of appeal to the dual credit council on questions about implementing the program, the agreement, or the rules. A postsecondary institution decision on enrollment is final under part 6.30.7.8.