Until a few years ago, three, maybe four kids at Le Sueur-Henderson High School took part in Post Secondary Enrollment Option classes at Minnesota State University.

And to take part, they needed to find a way from Le Sueur to Mankato and back.

But three years ago, a new program emerged that made things a whole lot easier for them.

Now, instead of Le Sueur students going to MSU, the university comes to Le Sueur.

“That’s why parents love it so much,” said Kevin Enerson, principal at Le Sueur-Henderson High School. “And it’s a great opportunity for them to get a taste of the college curriculum.”

MSU calls this program “concurrent enrollment,” and it’s just one of the ways more and more kids are earning college credit while still in high school. Before this program, Le Sueur-Henderson had just a handful of students involved in college-credit courses. This year, they have nearly 70.

PSEO numbers are up, state officials say, since the program’s inaugural year in 1985. In year one, the program attracted 3,500 students. Last year, there were 7,500.

MSU’s concurrent enrollment program at MSU is gaining more believers every semester. When it began in spring semester 2006, there were 161 students enrolled. This semester, there are 274.

At the state level, education department officials say programs that allow students the chance to experience college early can only be positive.

“We’re seeing concurrent enrollment being used a lot in technical classes,” said Karen Klinzing, assistant commissioner for the Department of Education.

Kathy Trauger, who coordinates the PSEO programs at Minnesota State University, said MSU didn’t start offering concurrent enrollment until about three years ago.

“We had a change in philosophy at the university,” Trauger said. “The administration had decided we weren’t going to do concurrent enrollment. ... But in recent years, things have changed.”

Among the disciplines under MSU’s concurrent enrollment umbrella are English, biology, math, music and sociology. They hope to add more areas and work with more schools.

One school district MSU does not work with on concurrent enrollment is Mankato Area Public Schools. Many of their kids do, however, use PSEO, and many more enroll in the district’s advanced placement courses.

Bill Frederickson, a guidance counselor at Mankato West, said there are several reasons why Mankato schools would use concurrent enrollment.

First, they are so close to MSU and other schools that the travel barrier isn’t there. Second, and perhaps the biggest factor, students who enroll in advanced placement classes are surrounded by academically gifted students.

Because of this, Frederickson said, they’ll be challenged more than they would be in a typical class of, say, English composition 101 at MSU. Such classes are filled with students who would typically have scored lower on standardized tests than the students in an advanced placement class in high school.

Klinzing said the state is a firm believer in the PSEO program.

“PSEO provides students with rigorous opportunities for credit that they may not otherwise be able to get in their local schools,” she said. “It also gives them a chance to know firsthand what it’s like to be in a college setting.”

There are a few drawbacks to PSEO, especially if a student spends a lot of his or her time on the college campus.

“You miss out on senior year,” Frederickson said. “That’s what some students have told us. They felt like they missed out. And then there have been other kids who were fine with it.”

Frederickson said he’s hoping to survey students who participated in PSEO to get a better idea of what they’ve been satisfied and dissatisfied with.

And to get the word out to parents, he said they’ll be hosting a mandatory information session for any parents wishing to enroll their children in a PSEO program.

At Le Sueur, Enerson said the high numbers they’ve seen are partly a result of younger students seeing what the older students are doing and wanting to join in.

Whatever the cause, it has been cost-effective to use concurrent enrollment.

For each student that leaves the high school to take a PSEO course, the state funding the school receives for that student goes with them.

Enerson said that for each student who leaves, they lose about $6,000. By contrast, they pay MSU about $1,500 for each concurrent enrollment class. It’s easy to see why Le Sueur-Henderson, from a financial perspective, appreciates concurrent enrollment.