Traffic waits at the intersection of Soquel and Cabrillo College drives in Aptos in an undated image. Starting fall 2025, Pajaro Valley Unified will partner with Cabrillo College to let 70 ninth graders earn up to 24 free, transferable college credits through a new dual enrollment program. (Google image)

Pajaro Valley High School will begin offering college courses to incoming ninth graders in fall semester 2025.

Seventy students will be chosen by lottery to enroll in the PV Advance dual enrollment program, earning UC and CSU transferable credits through Cabrillo College.  The courses will be integrated into their high school day.

By the time they graduate high school, they will have earned a minimum of 24 college credits,  at no cost to families. That’s the equivalent of about two semesters of college, dramatically cutting down the price of a four-year college education by about 25%.

According to Education Data Initiative, a nonprofit that collects and shares education data, the average cost of college in the United States has doubled in the 21st century and runs about is $38,270 per student per year, including books, supplies, and daily living expenses. That number is more for the University of California system, which estimates the cost per year at a residential campus is $43,634.

The program is endorsed by the The Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers.

“Pajaro Valley Unified School District’s new early college pathway exemplifies our district’s unwavering commitment to expanding opportunities and enhancing equity,” said Dr. Heather Contreras, PVUSD superintendent of schools. “This program is a transformative opportunity, especially for our first-generation college-bound students.”

Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.