In the past decade, the number of Illinois high schoolers earning early college credit from Advanced Placement or Dual Credit courses has skyrocketed. “If you have a curriculum that connects to students’ lives, to students’ communities," said Kolluri, "then I think you can, perhaps in a lot of respects, do a better job attracting more students. "How much curricular control are we trying to cede from our public-school professionals?"But, he says, even though the current system is flawed, when you talk to students taking AP classes -- they really like them