rigorous than the community college equivalent. I think very highly of the College Physics course that is taught by one of our high school teachers. My daughter did not take it (she is taking Calculus based Physics instead). My daughter has the Project Lead the Way Design class right now at the High School and that grants credit for the engineering freshman design course.
A friend of mine who taught both university and community college courses said that the community college administration got on her case for being too hard. She taught the community college and university class in the same fashion (Statistics, Math for Decision Making, Precalculus). Between that and the ridicously low pay, she has elected to stop teaching community college classes.
So far my daughter has taken several community college courses, I have found that they have acceptable rigor (the Calculus I course had the same expectation as my Calculus I at Purdue 30 years ago).
As said in the article community college courses are a marvelous way to save money. I much prefer them to AP (my daughter is not doing any AP courses). My daughter will actually have almost her first two years of engineering done while in High School (I have had to pay for a number of the classes, but the High School will be paying for 10 of the most expensive over four semesters). Since she is planning on being a mechanical engineer like me, I will be able to send her off to college with confidence that she has a firm foundation.
My daughter's college courses (except for Chemistry over the summer between high school Soph and Jr year) have been online. She has taken Speech (she recorded her speeches in front of an audience), Calculus I, C++, Geography, and English Composition online. She now has Calculus based Physics I, Calculus II, and Engineering Analysis online. The advantage of online is that she can control her time. Last year she was taking four finals and even five tests in the same day. That will never happen again.
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