Dual enrollment programs help highly motivated high school students get a head start on their college education. For decades, the programs have allowed students to earn high school and college credit at the same time.
Each year, about 2.5 million students take dual enrollment courses, according to the U.S. Department of Education, and the programs continue to grow.
What Are Dual Enrollment Programs?
High school dual enrollment programs began in the 1950s and grew to become widely available across the U.S., according to the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships, a nonprofit accrediting body for such programs. These types of programs are known by several names, such as dual credit, concurrent enrollment and early college, says Amy Williams, executive director of NACEP.
But most have the same goal: to give students an opportunity to test their mettle academically, to understand college systems and protocols while they’re still in high school, and to help them figure out how college best fits into their plans, she says.
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That early introduction to college rigor shows up in stronger college enrollment and degree completion. Nationally, about 81% of dual enrollment students went to college their first year after high school, and 50% of them completed a college credential within four years compared to 44% of their peers who didn’t participate in dual enrollment programs, according to a 2024 report from the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York.
How Dual Enrollment Works
While students may start hearing about dual enrollment in middle school, most dual enrollment programs target juniors and seniors.
High schools partner with colleges and universities to determine which dual-credit courses to offer students. Students can take these courses at their high school, on a college campus or online.
Course offerings can range from core courses such as math and English to certifications in trades such as welding. Just about any coursework you can find in the first year or two on a college campus can potentially be offered through dual enrollment, Williams notes.
Eighty percent of dual enrollment students nationally take their college courses at their own school, according to NACEP.
High schools in a high-density urban or suburban area typically have robust partnerships with multiple colleges, experts say.
Riley Hunter, a junior at East Coweta High School in Sharpsburg, Georgia, is participating in a dual enrollment program between his school and the University of West Georgia. He plans to take two courses at the university starting in January.
“It’ll help me get a feel for college,” says Riley, who is unsure where he’ll matriculate but is sure he wants to major in cybersecurity. With dual enrollment, he says, he can “get some of my basic courses out of the way so that I can focus on my major.”
While Riley chose a four-year college to participate in dual enrollment, community colleges tend to be the biggest participant in and beneficiary from dual enrollment programs, experts say.
Dual enrollment students make up about 22% of enrollment in community colleges, according to CCRC.
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Benefits of Dual Enrollment Programs
A high-quality dual enrollment program introduces students to college rigor, teaches students autonomy and makes sure they have access to tutoring, writing centers, math centers, library resources — everything needed to help them familiarize themselves with the college experience while still in high school, experts say.
CCRC urges broader access to dual enrollment programs for low-income, Black and Hispanic students — groups that are consistently underrepresented in dual enrollment compared to K-12 and undergraduate students overall.
“Dual enrollment is a strong on-ramp to increase college enrollment and completion for all students,” especially those students, “but there is a lot of room for improvement,” says Tatiana Velasco, a senior research associate at CCRC and the report’s lead author.
How to Access Dual Enrollment Programs
The process to enroll can vary by college and high school. Interested students can start by talking to a school counselor.
Homeschooled students also can participate by reaching out to local colleges directly to find out which courses are offered for dual enrollment.
Dual enrollment participation varies significantly across states, shaped by differences in policy context and investment, experts say. About 89% of high schools report that they offer dual enrollment coursework, according to NACEP, and high schools in the South and Midwest are more likely to offer the programs than high schools in the Northeast or West.
NACEP also reports that 80% of dual enrollment students nationally take their college courses at their own school, while an additional 6% take the course at a different school such as a career center or academy.
About 70% of community colleges partner in dual enrollment programs with high schools, with dual enrollment students making up about 21% of all community college students, per CCRC.
One State’s Success
Dual enrollment participation has exploded in Kentucky since the state legislature enacted its Dual Credit Scholarship Fund in 2017. About 46.2% of high school students in the state graduate with dual enrollment credits.
A new state study found that dual enrollment had a major impact on the likelihood a student goes to college, college affordability and completion for all students, according to Aaron Thompson, president of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, which conducted the study.
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Kentucky students who take dual enrollment courses are 20 percentage points more likely to matriculate to college than those who don’t, he wrote in an email.
Taking a college-level course at the high school, whether taught by a college faculty member or a high school instructor, correlated with an increase of 7 percentage points in the student enrolling in college, the study indicated. Students gained a slight boost, about 2 percentage points, from taking a class taught in person by faculty at a college, but they were no more likely to enroll in college after taking an online course taught by college faculty than if they’d taken none.
“We also found that students who took any dual credit and matriculated to technical colleges or universities had much faster times to degree, were far less likely to graduate with any debt, and those with debt had far less than students who matriculated with no dual credit,” Thompson notes.
The opportunity that comes with dual-credit participation is profound in a state like Kentucky, which historically is a lower-income state, Thompson says.
“This is especially true for our first-generation college-going students,” he says. “Many of them haven’t thought of themselves as college material, and taking dual-credit courses can completely change that narrative for a prospective student.”
When students take a dual-credit course and are successful in it, Thompson adds, they begin to think differently about their education and their future career and life options.
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How to Earn College Credit Through Dual Enrollment originally appeared on usnews.com