A southern New Jersey high school and university are teaming up to offer studies a chance to earn their diploma and a college degree in just six years.

“Eight years becomes six years as a result of this partnership,” says Stockton University President Dre. Harvey Kesseleman.

Stockton University is partnering with the Ocean City School District to offer a dual enrollment program. It gives students a chance to get their high school diploma and bachelor’s degree in six years.

“They’ll do three years [at Ocean City High School] and during those three years they’ll take college courses for those who are accelerated who are able to take them successfully, and they’ll accumulate up to 32 credits of college courses here, which fulfills their high school requirements and fulfills our freshman year requirements, so that they will enter basically as a sophomore student,” Kesseleman says.

Stockton-bound senior Cody Baker took dual credit courses in high school. He says that he wished that this program had been available to his class.

“I have a few dual credit courses. One of the ones is the Holocaust and genocide studies,” he says. “It was very nice. You kind of got a head start on your college life and got some of your credits.”

Both Stockton and Ocean City say they believe this will be a big draw for students not only because it will save them time, but some money as well.

“That’s a No. 1 problem, I think, for our graduates in this day and age of the amount of student debt that they have. So they carry into them so many loans that they haven’t even started Day 1 in a career,” says Ocean City Schools Superintendent Dr. Kathleen Taylor.

The program launches this fall for incoming freshmen.

About 300 students will graduate from Ocean City High School this month. More than 60 of them will head to Stockton this fall.