Guides · State programs · By FastTrack Advising

Running Start in Washington, explained for parents

Published September 13, 2026 · Updated September 17, 2026

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Running Start is Washington's dual enrollment program: 11th and 12th graders take college courses tuition-free at participating colleges, earning high school and college credit at once. Tuition is covered up to a combined high school and college load of 1.4 full-time equivalent, about 15 college credits a quarter. Families still pay college fees, books, and transportation unless they qualify for a waiver.

Who: 11th and 12th graders in Washington
Tuition: Covered up to 1.4 FTE combined, roughly 15 college credits a quarter
Fees and books: Paid by the family, with waivers for eligible students
Transportation: Family provides
Runs through: OSPI and the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
The law: RCW 28A.600.300 and 5 more

Who can do Running Start?

Juniors and seniors can. A student applies to a participating college, which is most of the community and technical colleges plus a handful of universities, and the college decides admission using its own placement process. The high school doesn't pick the college for you, but the counselor has to sign off on the enrollment each quarter.

What does the state pay for?

The state pays tuition, up to a limit. It covers college tuition for a combined high school and college load of 1.4 full-time equivalent per quarter. In practice that means the college side is covered up to about 15 credits a quarter, and the exact number depends on how much your teen is still taking at the high school.

Go over the limit and you pay tuition for every credit above it. The number is written on the Running Start Enrollment Verification Form your high school counselor signs each quarter, and that form is the one we ask Washington families to keep a copy of, because the credit line written on it is the line the college bills against.

What will we still pay?

You will still pay college fees, books, and the cost of getting there. Colleges charge mandatory fees based on the number of credits, and those are the family's unless the student qualifies for a fee waiver through the school district. Books are yours too, though many colleges keep funds for books, bus passes, and a food pantry for students who need them. Ask the Running Start office at the college directly, because those programs are usually not advertised on the front page.

Does the credit count?

It counts both ways. Courses earn high school credit toward graduation and college credit on a college transcript. Whether that college credit transfers cleanly to a four-year school later depends on the receiving school and the specific course. Washington's public universities generally take community college credit well, but "accepted" and "counts toward the degree" are different questions.

Where did Running Start come from?

Running Start was the centerpiece of the Learning by Choice law that Gov. Booth Gardner signed on April 11, 1990. Its funding logic came from Minnesota's 1985 PSEO: the district passes the student's state allocation to the college in proportion to the hours spent there, and the college cannot charge tuition. Washington narrowed two things. Only community and technical colleges qualified, and only juniors and seniors could take part. The program started as a pilot in five college districts and went statewide in 1992-93. Gardner had wanted a task force to study extending it to four-year universities, but he vetoed that section for lack of funding, which is why Running Start still lives at the two-year colleges.

Questions to ask your counselor

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

How many high school credits does my teen still need, and how does that change the college credit limit on the verification form?
Does our district offer the Running Start fee waiver, and what qualifies a student?
Which Running Start courses satisfy our specific graduation requirements?
Which participating colleges are within reach for us, and what placement process does each one use?
Does the college have book, transit, or food funds for Running Start students?

Frequently asked

Is Running Start free?

Tuition is free up to a combined 1.4 FTE per quarter, about 15 college credits. Families pay mandatory college fees based on credits, plus books and transportation, with fee waivers available for eligible students through the public school district.

What grades can do Running Start?

11th and 12th grade. Students apply to the college directly and the high school counselor signs an Enrollment Verification Form each quarter.

How many credits does Running Start cover?

Up to 1.4 full-time equivalent combined between high school and college. The college portion is capped at 15 credits a quarter, and anything above the limit on the verification form is billed at regular tuition.

Sources

OSPI, Running Start frequently asked questions · the 1.4 FTE limit, fees, books, and transportation
RCW 28A.600.310, Running Start program · the statute
WAC 392-169, Running Start rules
Chapter 9, Laws of Washington 1990, First Extraordinary Session (the Learning by Choice law) · Running Start, sections 401 to 415, and the governor's veto message
HistoryLink.org, "Gardner, William Booth (1936-2013)"

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.

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.
College Credit Plus (Ohio) Open to 7th through 12th graders, free at Ohio public colleges for public school students, with an April 1 letter of intent and a 30-credit annual cap.
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 Running Start 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