A new comprehensive study of dual enrollment (ED) shows that the popular programs yield higher rates of students attending colleges and completing, but there are gaps in access and success for low-income, Black and Hispanic students.
Nearly 2.5 million high school students take DE college courses each year, which are now offered at 90% of public high schools across the country, according to the new research from the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Columbia University. Community colleges serve nearly three-fourths of all DE students, it notes.
CCRC used National Student Clearinghouse Research Center data to study national and state-by-state landscapes on the postsecondary enrollment and completion outcomes of high school students who began taking DE college courses in fall 2015, tracked for four years after high school.
Key findings in the report:
- Nearly 40% of new undergraduates overall and 60% of new community college students in fall 2015 were either current or former DE students.
- 81% of DE students attended college in the first year after high school, compared with about 70% of students overall. Of those, 51% went to four-year institutions, and nearly one-third to community colleges.
- DE students who enrolled in college in the first year after high school completed college credentials at higher rates than students who entered college immediately after high school without dual enrollment.
- Almost one-third (31%) of DE students were still enrolled in college and making progress toward a credential within four years of completing high school.
- High school students who took dual enrollment at a four-year institution did particularly well in college but were not as diverse as other DE students in terms of race/ethnicity and income.
- For community colleges, former DE students are a strong source of post-high-school enrollments, with more than one-third of community college DE students returning for at least one term to the same community college in the first year after high school.
The race case
Low-income, Black and Hispanic students are underrepresented in dual enrollment, and their postsecondary award completion rates were lower compared to other dual enrollees, the report finds. However, these students did have better outcomes than students who did not participate in DE, it added.
The report finds that:
- While 36% of DE students who enrolled in college within the first year after high school completed a bachelor’s in four years, only 28% of low-income, 29% of Black and 25% of Hispanic dual enrollees did so.
- Some states have made progress in broadening access to dual enrollment for students from underrepresented groups. However, states where these groups were better represented in DE tended to show weaker college-going and completion outcomes, “suggesting that there is a tension between increasing equitable access to dual enrollment and ensuring student success.”
- A few states had more representative participation and college completion rates for Black and Hispanic students in dual enrollment.
Diverse state approaches
The report dives into states’ dual-enrollment programs via a data dashboard, showing great variety among states.
Ten states (California, Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin) accounted for more than half of all new DE students nationally in fall 2015. Texas had the most new DE students — nearly twice as many as the second-largest state, New York.
In 41 states, DE students who enrolled in college right after high school had higher college completion rates than recent high school graduates entering postsecondary education without prior DE. In 16 states, DE students showed double-digit higher completion rates. The postsecondary outcomes of dual enrollees were especially strong in some states, including Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and New Jersey.
In some states with large numbers of community college dual enrollees, such as Iowa, Texas and Washington, nearly half of dual enrollees returned to their DE community college after high school.
CCRC encourages examining the policies and practices of states to broaden the benefits of dual enrollment.
“Given the wide range of state policies and local implementation practices in the national DE landscape, our analyses raise questions about how different state and local approaches to DE policy, programmatic design, and implementation may explain differences in participants’ postsecondary outcomes,” it says.
