Law allows early move to college

Next fall, ambitious teenage scholars will have a choice: Stay with their high school class or move on to college early.

A law called Move on When Ready gives high school juniors and seniors the option to become full-time college students while technically still enrolled at their home high school.

"This is just totally new because (the student is) pretty much on campus full time," said Kevin Guthas, an Oconee County High School counselor. "The benefit would be that it would save on the overall cost of college and give them early exposure to college."

Today, about 6,000 students across the state split their time between high school and college classes in joint- or dual-enrollment programs offered by Georgia's technical colleges. Students applying for college under the new program would be required to take a minimum of 12 college credits, but still could participate or attend high school sports or extracurricular activities.

Tuition would be paid by the public school system through the state's share of per-pupil funding. Unlike some current programs, students would not have to spend part of their Hope Scholarship on college classes.

To be eligible to enroll as a full-time college student, high school students would need to be at least 16 years old, have passed the Georgia High School Graduation Test and met admissions requirements set by each college.

Athens Technical College and other state technical colleges plan to accommodate any high school student so long as he meets all requirements for acceptance, said Mike Light, a spokesman for the Technical College System of Georgia.

However, few students are expected to take advantage of the program in its first year, high school administrators said.

"At this point we don't know," Ced