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College Credit Plus in Ohio: CCP, explained for parents

Published September 13, 2026 · Updated September 18, 2026

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College Credit Plus is Ohio's dual enrollment program for students in grades 7 through 12. The law's main eligibility sections name grades 9 through 12, and a separate section opens the same program to seventh and eighth graders on the same terms. Public school students pay nothing at Ohio public colleges, and the letter of intent is due April 1.

Who: Ohio students in grades 7 through 12, with grades 7 and 8 admitted under Ohio Revised Code 3365.033
Cost at public colleges: No charge for tuition, textbooks, or fees for public school students
Eligibility: Remediation-free test score, or unweighted GPA of 3.0 or higher
Credit caps: 30 credit hours a year, 120 across the program
Letter of intent: To the school by April 1
The law: Ohio Rev. Code Chapter 3365 and 8 more

Who qualifies for College Credit Plus?

Any Ohio student in grades 7 through 12 can apply to a public college or a participating private one. To be admitted, a student needs either a remediation-free score on a standard test, meaning the ACT, SAT, or Accuplacer thresholds the Ohio Department of Higher Education sets, or a cumulative unweighted high school GPA of at least 3.0.

The grade range comes from two places in the law, which is why a family reading the statute can end up with a different answer than the one the state publishes. Ohio Revised Code 3365.02 and 3365.03 write the program for a student in the ninth, tenth, eleventh, or twelfth grade year. Section 3365.033, effective October 3, 2023, then opens the same program to seventh and eighth graders at public, nonpublic, and home education schools who meet the eligibility criteria required of the older students. Grades 7 through 12 is the correct answer, and 3365.033 is the section that gets you there.

For a seventh or eighth grader the bar is the one a junior faces. The same remediation-free score or 3.0 GPA applies, the college still admits on its own criteria, and 3365.033 makes the parent or guardian responsible for getting the student to the course.

Colleges can layer their own requirements on top of the state minimum, so read the specific college's CCP page before you count on a seat.

What does it cost?

A public school student at an Ohio public college pays nothing for tuition, textbooks, or fees, as long as the courses are taken under CCP rules.

Money can still show up in two places. Private colleges can charge, and the amount varies by school. And a student who fails or withdraws from a course can be asked to reimburse the district for it, so the district's policy on that is one of the questions to bring to the counselor.

What is the April 1 letter of intent?

Before the school year in which your teen wants to take a CCP course, you file a letter of intent with the school by April 1. Miss it and the student waits for the next window. April 1 is the date we tell Ohio families to write down first, because it comes months before the school year starts and a missed letter means waiting a full year for the next one. The letter is a one-page notice rather than a commitment, and there is no downside to filing it even if you are still deciding.

Home education families file on the same date through the Department of Education and Workforce, by 5 p.m. on April 1 for the following school year. There is a second window at 5 p.m. on November 1 for a family that missed April, and it reaches the spring term only.

How many credits can my teen take?

Up to 30 college credit hours in a school year, and 120 over the whole program. The annual number is reduced by the high school credits the student is taking that year, so a full high school schedule leaves less room on the college side. The counselor works out the exact number when the schedule is set.

Where did College Credit Plus come from?

College Credit Plus replaced Ohio's Postsecondary Enrollment Opportunities Program in 2015-16. That earlier program came in Senate Bill 140, a broad reform bill signed by Gov. Dick Celeste and effective October 2, 1989, and its structure closely followed Minnesota's 1985 PSEO: juniors and seniors, no tuition or book costs, and funding that moved from the sending high school to the college. A 2007 study found the program badly under-used, with four of five guidance counselors opposed to it and a first-year enrollment of roughly 630 students. Ohio opened it to grades nine through twelve in 1997. That history is worth knowing if a counselor hesitates, because the hesitation is older than the current program.

Questions to ask your counselor

Bring these to the first meeting. The answers decide most of the plan.

Which colleges does our district partner with for CCP, and are any courses taught at the high school?
Does the college we are looking at add requirements beyond the state's 3.0 GPA or remediation-free score?
How many high school credits is my teen taking next year, and what does that leave for college credit under the 30-hour cap?
What is the district's policy on charging families back for a failed or withdrawn course?
How do CCP grades appear on the high school transcript, and are they weighted?

Frequently asked

Is College Credit Plus free?

Yes for public school students at Ohio public colleges, which charge no tuition, textbooks, or fees for courses taken under CCP rules. Private colleges can charge, and a failed or withdrawn course can be charged back by the district.

What GPA do you need for College Credit Plus?

A cumulative unweighted high school GPA of at least 3.0, or a remediation-free score on the ACT, SAT, or Accuplacer. Colleges may add their own requirements.

When is the College Credit Plus deadline?

The letter of intent is due to the school by April 1 for the following school year.

Can a 7th grader do College Credit Plus?

Yes. Ohio Revised Code 3365.033 opens the program to seventh and eighth graders who meet the same eligibility criteria as high school participants, which is why the state publishes CCP as grades 7 through 12 while the main eligibility sections name grades 9 through 12. Transportation is the family's responsibility.

Sources

Ohio Department of Higher Education, College Credit Plus · the program overview and grades 7 through 12
Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, College Credit Plus · cost for public school students and the letter of intent
Ohio Revised Code 3365.03, enrollment in the program · the ninth through twelfth grade years named in the main eligibility section
Ohio Revised Code 3365.033, seventh and eighth grade student participation · the section that opens CCP below ninth grade, the same eligibility criteria, and transportation left with the parent
Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, College Credit Plus for home-school families · grades 7 to 12, and the 5 p.m. April 1 and November 1 funding deadlines
Ohio Administrative Code 3333-1-65.14, student eligibility requirements · the remediation-free score and the 3.00 GPA alternative
Ohio Workforce, College Credit Plus overview
ODHE annual information session for public schools (2024) · credit caps and the April 1 date
Smith and colleagues, "The Ohio Postsecondary Enrollment Opportunities (PSEO) Program: Understanding Its Under-utilization" (2007) · the 1989 program's design and early enrollment
Education Week, "Celeste Signature Sets Extensive Reforms in Motion," August 2, 1989

Rules change. These were checked September 2026. Confirm the current version with your school before you act on any of it.

About FastTrack Advising

FastTrack Advising. FastTrack Advising works on dual enrollment and nothing else. We help families choose college courses a high schooler can take now that will still count toward the degree later, we check every course against the transfer rules of the colleges they name, and we stay in the picture through registration so the plan gets used. When the answer for a student is to wait a term, we say that too.

The law behind it

Every rule above traces to one of these. The Ohio law page says what each one decides, in plain language, with the section linked on the legislature's or the agency's own site.

Ohio Rev. Code Chapter 3365 College Credit Plus program
Ohio Rev. Code § 3365.02 College Credit Plus program, creation
Ohio Rev. Code § 3365.033 Seventh and eighth grade student participation
Ohio Rev. Code § 3365.07 College Credit Plus funding and payment
OAC 3333-1-65 Ohio Administrative Code, College Credit Plus definitions
OAC 3333-1-65.14 Student eligibility requirements
OAC 3333-1-65.12 Course eligibility and level progression
ODHE College Credit Plus Ohio Department of Higher Education, College Credit Plus
DEW College Credit Plus Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, College Credit Plus

Other state programs

All state programs

PSEO (Minnesota) Free tuition, books, and required fees for 10th through 12th graders at about 60 colleges, with a May 30 notice deadline that many families miss.
Running Start (Washington) Tuition-free college courses for juniors and seniors at Washington's community and technical colleges and a few universities. Families still pay fees and books, and the student gets to campus on their own.
Dual credit (Texas) Free at most large community colleges, and capped at $60.10 a credit hour in tuition at FAST colleges. Students with free or reduced lunch in the last five years pay nothing there.
Dual enrollment (Florida) Tuition-free by state law, with a 3.0 unweighted GPA and a qualifying PERT, SAT, or ACT score to get in. Public school students get textbooks covered too.
Dual enrollment (California) Community college courses for 9th through 12th graders through a district partnership called CCAP, with no enrollment fees and no textbook costs, capped at 15 units a term.
Dual Enrollment (Georgia) State funding covers tuition, fees, and books for 30 semester hours, mostly for juniors and seniors. After 30 hours the family pays the college's rate, and ninth graders are outside the program entirely.
Career & College Promise (North Carolina) Tuition paid by the state at community colleges for juniors and seniors with a 2.8 unweighted GPA. Whether the district covers fees and books, and who drives, varies by district.
Concurrent Enrollment (Colorado) Open to 9th through 12th graders with an approved academic plan. The district pays tuition at the community college rate; books and fees are usually the family's, and so is getting to campus.
Dual credit (Illinois) Governed by the Dual Credit Quality Act and a model agreement between each district and college. Whether your teen pays depends on that agreement.
Early College Credit and Start College Now (Wisconsin) Two programs, one for the technical colleges and one for universities, both for juniors and seniors. The district pays most or all of the tuition, and applications are due March 1 for fall and October 1 for spring.
Dual credit (Indiana) Every Indiana high school has to offer dual credit. Priority courses at public colleges cost at most $25 a credit hour, and nothing for students on free or reduced lunch.
Dual enrollment (Michigan) Grades 9 through 12, for courses the high school doesn't offer. The district pays tuition up to a state-set share; anything above it, plus books, is yours. Ten courses across high school.
Dual Enrollment (Alabama) Rising 10th through 12th graders with a 2.5 GPA, at $133 a credit hour plus fees, with a state scholarship that covers some courses when the legislature funds it. No credit cap at all.
Dual Enrollment (Tennessee) The lottery-funded Dual Enrollment Grant pays up to $620.55 for each of the first five courses, then much less. One June 30 application covers the whole academic year.
Dual enrollment (Pennsylvania) Every school entity has to hold at least one dual credit agreement, and none of them has to pay for the courses. The agreement states the cost, and published rates run from $83.50 to $230 a credit.
Dual enrollment (Virginia) Juniors and seniors at the community colleges. Courses on a College and Career Ready Virginia pathway cost the family nothing, and courses outside it are billed at the college rate.
Dual enrollment (Arizona) A community college course taught inside the high school during the school day. Concurrent enrollment is the separate arrangement where the student goes to the college. Price is set district by district.
Dual enrollment (South Carolina) College courses through the state's 16 technical colleges, priced by each college and district, with Lottery Tuition Assistance covering part of the tuition once a student carries six credit hours in a term.
Dual enrollment (Louisiana) A Board of Regents floor for eligibility, four ways to clear it, and a bill the district assembles out of state and federal funds. TOPS Tech Early Start covers career courses for juniors and seniors.
Dual enrollment (Maryland) The Blueprint moved the bill off families for students who meet the College and Career Readiness Standard, and set a floor of two covered courses each fall and spring. Counties add their own terms on top.
Concurrent Enrollment (Utah) College courses for $5 a credit hour, taught mostly inside the high school by a college-approved teacher. Each college sets its own admission bar, and books are still yours.
Concurrent Enrollment (Oklahoma) Juniors and seniors get tuition waived by the State Regents, 18 credit hours a year for seniors and 9 for juniors. Fees and books stay with the family, and each college sets its own entrance bar.
Dual enrollment (New York) No single statewide program. CUNY's College Now is free for New York City public school students, SUNY campuses price their own, and a new state rule makes districts file their partnership agreements in 2026.
Dual enrollment (Massachusetts) Two state programs. CDEP waives tuition and fees at public campuses for eligible high schoolers, mostly in the spring, and designated Early College builds the courses into the school day at no cost.
Concurrent Enrollment (Iowa) College courses run through a district contract with a community college, at no tuition cost to the family. Iowa also runs PSEO, and the two programs treat a failed course differently.
Concurrent Credit (Arkansas) State policy bars a college from billing the family for tuition, fees, or materials on a concurrent credit course. A 2025 scholarship replaced the old Concurrent Challenge grant and pays $65 a credit hour.
Dual Enrollment and Dual Credit (Mississippi) Mississippi separates the two terms in statute. Dual enrollment earns college credit only; dual credit earns high school credit too, and the distinction decides whether the course helps your teen graduate.
Dual Enrollment (Nebraska) Nebraska has no single statewide program, so the price depends on which college your high school partners with. The ACE scholarship covers tuition and mandatory fees for students who qualify on income.
Dual Credit (New Mexico) A statewide program where the college charges no tuition and the school district buys the books, though the tuition waiver lives in rule rather than in statute. Families pay special course fees and transportation.
Early College (Maine) Maine pays college tuition for high schoolers through the Aspirations Program, and the class of 2027 forward gets 18 tuition-free credits for the whole of high school.
Dual and Concurrent Enrollment (New Hampshire) The statute funds up to four courses in each of grades 10, 11, and 12. The community college scholarship covers two a year, and most of those courses are taught inside the high school.
Dual Enrollment (Vermont) Two vouchers, each covering tuition on a college course of up to four credits, for any Vermont student who has finished grade 10, including home study students.
Dual credit (West Virginia) A state-funded pilot pays tuition and academic fees for courses on approved career pathways, for public, private, charter, microschool, learning pod, and homeschool students alike.
Dual enrollment (Delaware) No statewide program makes it free. State regulation puts the policy on every district and charter, bars turning a student away over money, and most courses run through Delaware Tech.
Dual enrollment (New Jersey) No statewide free tuition. Public colleges must sign dual enrollment agreements and districts choose whether to join, so the price and the eligibility rules come from your own county college.
Dual enrollment (Connecticut) A board policy rather than a statute sets the rules. Concurrent credit courses are capped at $50 a credit, CT State covers two courses a semester for qualifying juniors and seniors, and UConn ECE has run since 1955.
Accelerated learning (Oregon) Oregon calls the whole category accelerated learning. Dual credit at the high school is free or close to it at most community colleges, and Expanded Options moves a junior or senior onto a campus at no charge to the student.
Dual enrollment (Nevada) Every district has to run a dual credit program, and no statute says who pays for it, so the price runs from $25 a credit at the high school to $154 on a university campus.
Concurrent enrollment (Kansas) Concurrent enrollment means the college course is taught at the high school, and it is not free by default. Excel in CTE pays tuition for approved technical courses, and a district board may cover the rest if it chooses to.
Dual Credit (Kentucky) A published $99 ceiling on what a college may charge a high school student, a statutory formula that reads differently, and a scholarship that funds two general education courses across junior and senior year.
Dual Credit (Missouri) Missouri draws a line between dual credit and dual enrollment based on who teaches, and the price and the GPA tier both follow from that.
Dual Credit (Idaho) Every Idaho public school student gets $4,625 to spend on college credit between grades 7 and 12, and the fund pays $75 a credit, which is what colleges charge.
Dual Credit (North Dakota) Tuition is the family's here, at a reduced rate that changes with who teaches the course, and Bank of North Dakota covers two courses a year for students on free or reduced lunch.
Dual Credit (South Dakota) Juniors and seniors split a deeply reduced tuition rate with the state, at $80.37 a credit hour, under a statute with a hard rule about what happens if a course goes badly.
Dual and Concurrent Enrollment (Rhode Island) A state fund covers tuition and fees for part-time college courses at the three public institutions, and the statute behind it caps that fund at whatever the budget appropriates each year.
Early College and Running Start (Hawaii) Two programs run off one statute that never says who pays. Early College comes to the high school and the school usually covers it; Running Start puts the student on a UH campus at that campus’s published rate.
Dual Enrollment (Alaska) No state program and no state money behind it. What a college course costs an Alaska family depends on which University of Alaska campus offers it and whether the school district signed an agreement.
Dual Enrollment (Montana) The first two courses or six credits carry no tuition anywhere in the Montana University System, fees are waived, and everything after that costs half of resident two-year tuition, around $60 a credit.
Dual and Concurrent Enrollment (Wyoming) State law bars a college from charging a participating student for textbooks, materials, student services, or any other fee, and from 2026-27 the state starts reimbursing districts for what it costs them.

Planning College Credit Plus for your teen?

Save this page and the state's deadlines show up on your own My FastTrack page, next to the tools. The law page saves separately, for the day a school gives an answer that does not match the statute. 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.

Save to My FastTrack