By Reporter Megan Altekruse
Two CAPP (Cooperative Academic Partnership Program) courses are free per semester this year at NHS for eligible students cooperating, according to new state law.
“It’s nice that it’s being paid for because we’re already trying to save up for college next year, ” said senior Talia Booher, who is taking Calculus AB as a CAPP class.
According to the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh’s website, CAPP classes have been available to students since 1975 and they have been offered at NHS for at least 12 years. A CAPP course is a college level course that a student at the high school level can take and receive college credit. All Universities in Wisconsin accept CAPP course credits as well as many other colleges outside of state.
Mrs. Beth Altekruse, co-chairperson for the counseling department, said that NHS offers 15 CAPP classes. Altekruse said that there were typically enough students to run classes, but there are often a few that do not meet the class size requirements.
In past years, one of the benefits of taking these classes was the decrease in cost. The CAPP courses cost $535.20 at the most which is approximately half of what a student would pay for the same class at a college.
To qualify to take these classes, a student must have a GPA of 3.25 or higher or an ACT score of at least 24. Because of these requirements and the cost of the class, only 80 students took a CAPP course last year. Many students, like Booher, would have decided to take the course as AP instead of CAPP if it was not free this year.
When the state decided to make this law, a letter was sent to all students signed up for an AP or CAPP level course to notify families of this change. This year a projected 175 students have signed up for CAPP level courses with only three classes not running out of the 15.
Without the aid of the UW schools, the school would have had to pay “around $130,00 to pay for these courses,” administrator Mr. Chad Buboltz said.
In terms of the future, no one knows for sure what will happen. This arrangement was decided on by the state for only this year. Buboltz said that he thinks NHS and the UW schools will make some arrangement for next year to keep this opportunity open for students, but there are no guarantees.
Buboltz’s concluding thought was to say that some courses are offered for CAPP and AP. If CAPP goes away, most courses could still be taken for AP credit or credit in general.
