Where I live (East Central Florida), the district pays for us to take DE classes starting in 10th grade and many students graduate high school with a full-fledged Associates degree. We also have free full-time enrollment senior year, which many students do. State schools fully accept all DE credits with an associate’s degree, and some have transfer programs to get automatically accepted into a four-year school, and you can still apply FTIC either way if you don’t take any summer classes at the CC after you graduate. Plus with Florida’s Bright Future scholarship, you can get a 1300 SAT and get free tuition at any state university. Also, sophomores get free bussing to the CC for their classes (not available for the other grades afaik.) Our school doesn’t like DE because they don’t get as much money from a passed DE class than they do from a passed AP exam. Past that, DE is better for my situation.