The fact that students with dual enrollment credits do better than students without dual enrollment credits is not very compelling. To qualify for classes, students generally must have done well on a test, earn high grades, or be at an advanced or honors level in school. These high-achieving students likely would have graduated from college in much larger numbers without any dual enrollment courses.
“Are we subsidizing students who were always going to go to college anyway?” asked Kristen Hengtgen, a policy analyst at EdTrust, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization that pushes for racial and economic equity in education. “Could we have invested the time, energy and effort differently into higher quality teachers or something else? “I think that’s a really important question.”
Hengtgen was not involved in this latest analysis, but is concerned about the serious underrepresentation of black and Hispanic students highlighted in the report. A data dashboard accompanying the new report documents that only 9 percent of high school students in dual enrollment classes were black, while black students made up 16 percent of high school students. Only 17 percent of dual-enrollment students were Hispanic at a time when Hispanic students made up nearly a quarter of the high school population. White students, by contrast, filled 65 percent of dual enrollment seats, but represented only half of the high school population. Asian students were the only group whose participation in dual enrollment equaled their share of the student population: 5 percent each.
Proponents of dual enrollment have argued that an early taste for college can motivate students to go to college, and the fact that so few black and Hispanic students are enrolling is perhaps the most troubling sign that the mammoth Public and private investment in education is not meeting one of its main objectives: expanding the workforce with a university education.
EdTrust’s Hengtgen argues that black, Hispanic and low-income students of all races need better counseling in high school to help them enroll in classes. Sometimes, he said, students don’t know that they have to take a prerequisite class in the 10th grade to be eligible for a dual enrollment class in the 11th grade, and by the time they find out, it’s too late. Cost is another barrier. Depending on the state and county, a family may be required to pay fees to take the classes. Although these fees are generally much cheaper than what college students pay per course, low-income families may still not be able to afford them.
Tatiana Velasco, CCRC economist and lead author of the October 2024 dual enrollment report, argues that dual enrollment may be most beneficial for Black and Hispanic students and low-income students of all races and ethnicities. In his data analysis, he noted that dual enrollment credits provided only a modest boost to students overall, but a very large boost to some demographic groups.
Among all high school students who enrolled in college immediately after high school, 36 percent of those with dual enrollment credits earned a bachelor’s degree in four years compared to 34 percent without any dual enrollment credits. Arguably, on average, dual enrollment credits are not making much of a difference in time to completion.
However, Velasco found much greater benefits from dual enrollment when he broke down the data by race and income. Only among black students who enrolled in college immediately, 29 percent of those who had earned dual enrollment credits completed a bachelor’s degree in four years, compared with only 18 percent of those who did not have dual enrollment credits. registration. That’s a more than 50 percent increase in college attainment. “The difference is enormous,” Velasco said.
Among Hispanic students who went directly to college, 25 percent of those with dual enrollment credits earned a bachelor’s degree in four years. Only 19 percent of Hispanic college students without dual enrollment credits did so. Dual enrollment also seemed particularly helpful for college students from low-income neighborhoods; 28 percent of them earned a bachelor’s degree in four years, compared to just 20 percent without dual enrollment.
Again, it is still unclear whether dual enrollment is driving these differences. It could be that black students who choose to take dual enrollment classes were already more motivated and high achievers and would still have graduated from college in much larger numbers. (Notably, black students with dual enrollment credits were more likely to attend selective four-year institutions.)
There is wide variation across the country in how dual enrollment works in high schools. In most cases, high school students never set foot on a college campus. The class is often taught by a high school teacher in a high school classroom. Sometimes community colleges provide the instructors. English composition and college algebra are popular offerings. Courses are generally designed and credits awarded by a local community college, although 30 percent of dual enrollment credits are awarded by four-year institutions.
Some other conclusions from the CCRC and National Student Clearinghouse report:
- States with very high college completion rates thanks to their dual enrollment programs, such as Delaware, Georgia, Mississippi, and New Jersey, tend to serve fewer black, Hispanic, and low-income students. Florida stood out as an exception. CCRC’s Velasco noted that it had high college completion rates while serving a slightly larger share of Hispanic students.
- In Iowa, Texas, and Washington, half of all dual-enrollment students ended up attending the college that awarded them their dual-enrollment credits.
- In Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Wisconsin, dual enrollment students have become a large source of prospective students for community colleges. (A separate cost study shows that some community colleges are offering dual enrollment courses to a nearby high school at a loss, but if these students enroll later, their future tuition dollars may offset those losses.)
And that is perhaps the most troubling unintended consequence of the explosion of dual enrollment credits. Many bright high school students are accumulating credits from three, four, or even five college classes and feel pressured to take advantage of these credits by enrolling in the community college associated with their high school. It might seem like a sensible decision. It is doubtful whether these dual enrollment credits can transfer to another school or, more importantly, count toward a student’s requirements in a major, which is what really matters and prevents students from graduating on time.
But many of these students could get into their state’s flagship school or even a highly selective private university on scholarship. And they would be better. Dual enrollment students who started at a community college, the report found, were much less likely than those who enrolled at a four-year institution to complete a bachelor’s degree four years after high school.
