A Review of Empirical Studies on Dual Enrollment: Assessing Educational Outcomes

The opportunities and challenges for community college faculty teaching dual enrollment programs

“…Caution should be used when interpreting these results, as many of the studies are now dated. An and Taylor (2019) noted that little research has focused on the outcomes for dual enrollment students based upon their courses' location, so establishing which model is better suited to produce better student outcomes is difficult to parse. Furthermore, post‐secondary institutions, particularly 4‐year institutions, may not count any or all of the credits a student earns through the concurrent enrollment model.…”

“…Dual enrollment refers to numerous policies and programs that allow high school students to earn college credit prior to high school graduation (An & Taylor, 2019). Since their initial inception in the 1970s as bilateral agreements between secondary school districts and a local college intended to provide high‐achieving students advanced curriculum options (Lichtenberger et al., 2014), dual enrollment programs have grown in size and scope, typically through state policy implementation (Zinth, 2015).…”

Reforming Transitions from High School to Higher Education

“…Second, Early Colleges provide all students with a rigorous academic experience to develop college-level skills. Research on dual enrollment has consistently demonstrated that students who take college courses while in high school tend to experience positive outcomes on proximal indicators like college enrollment, as well as more distal outcomes like college completion (e.g., An and Taylor 2019). Yet Early Colleges tend to provide greater access to college-level courses than dual enrollment programs in most traditional high schools.…”

Leveraging State Data Systems to Address Policy‐Relevant Research: The Case of Dual Enrollment

“…Enter dual enrollment. A significant and growing body of research indicates that students who dually enroll are more likely than their peers to achieve various college‐readiness metrics while in high school, graduate high school and matriculate into a postsecondary institution, persist to their second year of postsecondary enrollment, demonstrate measures of postsecondary success, and achieve higher postsecondary certificate or degree completion rates (An & Taylor, ; U.S. Department of Education, ). These outcomes persist in studies comparing former dual enrollment students to peers with similar demographic and high school academic backgrounds who did not dually enroll (U.S. Department of Education, ), and are all the more impressive given related research indicating that dual enrollment programs are more likely to serve underrepresented students than other programs that allow high school students the opportunity to earn postsecondary credit.…”