The fact that students with dual enrollment credits perform better than students without dual enrollment credits is not very convincing. In order to qualify for classes, students typically need to perform well on a test, earn high grades or be in an advanced or honors track in school. These high-achieving students likely graduated from college in much larger numbers without any dual enrollment courses.
“Are we supporting students who were always going to go to college anyway?” asked Christine Hengtgen, a policy analyst at EdTrust, a nonprofit research organization that lobbies for racial and economic equity in education. “Could we have spent the time and energy and effort differently on higher-quality teachers or something else? I think that’s a really important question.”
Heingtgen was not involved in this latest analysis, but she is concerned about the severe underrepresentation of Black and Latino students that the report highlights. The 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 the high school population. 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. In contrast, white students received 65% of dual enrollment seats but represented only half of the high school population. Asian students were the only group whose participation in dual enrollment matched their share of the student population: 5 percent of each.
Advocates of dual enrollment have made the argument that an early taste for college can motivate students to go to college, and the fact that so few black and Hispanic students go to college is perhaps the most troubling sign that the giant public and private investment in education is not achieving its goals. Home: Expanding the university-educated workforce.
Black, Latino and low-income students of all races need better counseling in high school to help them enroll in classes, EdTrust’s Hengtgen says. Sometimes, she said, students don’t know they have to take a core class in 10th grade to be eligible for a dual enrollment class in 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 have to pay a fee to attend classes. Although these fees are generally much cheaper than what college students pay per course, low-income families may not be able to afford them.
Tatiana Velasco, an economist at CCRC and lead author of the October 2024 dual enrollment report, makes the argument that dual enrollment may be more beneficial for Black and Latino students and low-income students of all races and ethnicities. In her analysis of the data, she noted that dual enrollment units provided only a modest boost to students overall, but a very significant boost to some demographic groups.
Among all high school students who went to college directly after high school, 36% of those with dual enrollment degrees earned a bachelor’s degree within four years compared to 34% without any dual enrollment degrees. It can be argued that dual enrollment credits do not make a significant difference in the time needed to complete school, on average.
However, Velasco found much greater benefits from dual enrollment when she broke down the data by race and income. Among the only black students who entered college immediately, 29% of those with dual enrollment credits completed their bachelor’s degrees within four years, compared to only 18% of those without dual enrollment credits. This represents a more than 50 percent increase in college attainment. “The difference is huge,” Velasco said.
Among Latino students who went directly to college, 25% of those with dual enrollment earned a bachelor’s degree within four years. Only 19 percent of Hispanic college students who did not earn dual enrollment credits did so. Dual enrollment also seemed particularly beneficial for college students from low-income neighborhoods; 28% earned a bachelor’s degree within four years compared to only 20% without dual enrollment.
Again, it remains unclear whether dual enrollment is driving these differences. It is possible that black students who chose to take dual enrollment classes were actually more motivated and higher achieving and still would have graduated from college in much greater 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 in a high school classroom by a high school teacher. Sometimes community colleges provide coaches. English composition and college algebra are popular offerings. Courses are generally designed and credits are awarded by the local community college, although 30 percent of dual enrollment credits are awarded by four-year institutions.
Some other takeaways from the CCRC and National Student Clearinghouse report:
- States with very high rates of college completion through dual enrollment programs, such as Delaware, Georgia, Mississippi, and New Jersey, tend to serve fewer black, Latino, and low-income students. Florida stood out as an exception. CCRC’s Velasco noted that it has strong college completion rates while serving a somewhat higher percentage of Hispanic students.
- In Iowa, Texas and Washington, half of dual enrollment students ended up going to the college that awarded them dual enrollment credits.
- In Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio and Wisconsin, dual enrollment students have become a great source of future students at community colleges. (A separate cost study shows that some community colleges offer dual enrollment courses to a nearby high school at a loss, but if those students enroll later, their future tuition dollars can offset those losses.)
This is perhaps the most troubling unintended consequence of the explosion in dual enrollment credits. Many high-achieving high school students take credits from three, four, or even five college semesters, and feel pressure to capitalize on those credits by enrolling at their high school’s partner community college. This may seem like a reasonable decision. It is uncertain whether these dual enrollment credits can be transferred to another school or, more importantly, count toward a student’s requirements for the major, which is what really matters and prevents students from graduating on time.
But many of these students can attend their state’s leading university or even a highly selective private college on a scholarship. And they will be better off. The report found that dual enrollment students who started at a community college were significantly less likely than those who enrolled at a four-year institution to complete a bachelor’s degree after four years of high school.