Cornell University recently announced a commitment to increase its voluntary contribution to the Ithaca City School District, providing nearly $900,000 in additional funding over the next five years, designating these funds to enhance academic offerings and support student achievement. As a ICSD student, I would like to propose an additional step that would further advance this goal: Resume dual enrollment in Cornell courses on campus during the academic semester for local high school students, an approach that would be mutually beneficial for both the University and the school district.
One of the major factors faculty consider when choosing where to work is the quality of the surrounding schools. In recent years, declining academic outcomes within ICSD have raised concerns among prospective and current faculty, sometimes prompting them to accept positions at or leave for universities located in districts with stronger schools. As a result, the quality of local school districts has a direct impact on Cornell’s ability to recruit and retain faculty and staff. An investment in local public education through reinstating dual enrollment is therefore an investment in the University’s own future.
This proposal is supported by clear precedent with the previous existence of dual enrollment at Cornell and the success of similar programs at peer institutions. The University of Pennsylvania’s Young Scholars High School Program allows local juniors to enroll in university courses, while Dartmouth’s Community High School Program has operated for over two decades, offering dual enrollment to local juniors and seniors. For years, Cornell, too, offered semester-long dual enrollment to local high school students through the School of Continuing Education, enabling many to pursue academic interests beyond what their schools could provide. However, when the University tightened its policies on the enrollment of minors, the dual enrollment program was effectively terminated.
At the same time, ICSD has been forced to reduce the number of advanced and specialized courses it offers due to budgetary and staffing constraints. These limitations have resulted in everything from reducing the number of sections offered for certain classes to cutting entire programs across multiple schools, often eliminating precisely the courses that allow students to pursue their interests in depth and challenge themselves beyond the standard high school curriculum. Reopening dual enrollment at Cornell could meaningfully supplement these lost opportunities while alleviating some of the resource pressures facing the district.
While Cornell has announced an initiative to offer dual-credit courses through the National Education Opportunity Network beginning this fall, the program remains limited in scope, due to logistical constraints, only three courses under the program, known as Cornell Ed Equity, are currently proposed to be taught at Ithaca High School: one class about the environmental science of earthquakes, another about statistics and data science and a third about business management. Moreover, because these courses would be taught on-site alongside Ithaca High School teachers, the program still requires the district to allocate its already limited resources. If staffing shortages are the reason class sections are being cut at our school, adding new classes would only further strain existing capacity. While these dual credit courses are an important step in the right direction, true dual enrollment would provide students access to a far broader range of academic disciplines while avoiding many of these logistical challenges and resource constraints.
Additionally, the importance of dual enrollment extends beyond ICSD to school districts across Tompkins County. Housing costs in Ithaca have pushed many families, including those of Cornell faculty and staff, into surrounding districts, where access to Advanced Placement and specialized courses varies widely. As a result, a student’s academic opportunities can hinge on which side of a district boundary they live on. Opening Cornell courses to students across the county would help reduce these disparities in academic offerings, ensuring that access to rigorous academic opportunities is not limited to those who can afford to live in better-resourced districts.
Finally, reopening dual enrollment would come at little cost to Cornell. High school students would enroll only after Cornell students have registered, filling seats in courses that are already running, resulting in no additional cost. Dual enrollment is thus a highly effective way for Cornell to strengthen its surrounding community while expanding opportunity and improving academic outcomes.
I urge the Cornell administration and the School of Continuing Education to reevaluate their policies regarding the enrollment of minors to reopen semester dual enrollment to high schoolers, fulfilling the University’s founding promise of “any person, any study” to our community.
Cornelia Ye is a junior at Ithaca High School. She can be reached at yecornelia.cy@gmail.com.
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