Miami Dade College dual enrollment booms

Miami Dade College’s (MDC) enrollment numbers are trending in the right direction, college officials say.

This summer, all eight campuses are bustling with students through summer camps and programs, said Dr. Malou Harrison, MDC’s executive vice president and provost.

“We have a very robust dual enrollment program with about 2,200 high school students who are dually enrolled this summer taking one or two courses towards college credits, and that is in many areas like general education, science and business courses,” she said. “We’re about 7% above where we were last summer in credit enrollment, so it’s looking really good. Dual enrollment is always an area that we place great emphasis on so that those students in high school can accelerate toward college by earning college credit while they are still in high school.”

With an ongoing partnership with Miami-Dade County Public Schools System to support the youth in the community, the college is currently running a summer youth internship program with a number of those students who are also dually enrolled and taking one college course for three credits, Dr. Harrison said. 

“By the numbers, it’s still too early to say for the fall because we’re registering still in August, but we’re up by about 18% in credit hours as compared to this time last year,” she added. “We believe that we’re going to definitely be up in enrollment for the fall as compared to last fall.”

About 500 high school students are also enrolled and participating in MDC’s presidential scholars and rising scholars programs. 

“These are 2024 high school students who have a 3.5 GPA or higher,” said Dr. Harrison. “These programs curate educational experience with holistic support services, like tutoring, and academic change-making summer abroad programs.”

MDC is currently offering two college credit certificates in AI awareness and AI practitioner, where students get a first hands-on learning experience in areas such as coding. 

“Starting this fall, we plan to offer a new bachelor of science in applied AI,” Dr. Harrison said. “We have a bachelor of applied science in leadership and management, and a concentration in digital marketing, human resources and procurement management. 

Other popular programming includes electrical vehicles, where young people are building an EV vehicle, and getting certified in cloud computing,” Dr. Harrison said. 

“And of course, we have what we call a very unique pipeline to become a teacher, and we all know that that profession really is in very high demand,” she said. “We have teacher academies throughout Miami-Dade County schools, so we can strengthen the pipeline early. We also have a teacher apprenticeship program, which is brand new, that’s coming on board for the fall. We have an excellent partnership with Miami-Dade County Public Schools and the charter schools to help get our teacher program graduates into classrooms once they graduate from Miami Dade College. We’re very proud that the training leads to direct placement, which is an outstanding profession here locally.”