-AN ANALYSIS OF TWO STATES-

Dual enrollment programs are an increasingly popular strategy for encouraging student success in postsecondary education. Given their growth and the resources that states, localities, and institutions are investing in dual enrollment programs, it is vital to determine whether they actually achieve the outcomes intended. Moreover, as a wider range of students—including career and technical education (CTE) students—participate in dual enrollment and as dual enrollment becomes integrated into CTE models, it is necessary to explore whether dual enrollment is an effective strategy to prepare CTE students for postsecondary education.

CCRC used student record data from the State of Florida and from the City University of New York (CUNY) system to investigate the persistence of dual enrollment students in postsecondary education compared to similar peers who do not participate in dual enrollment. CCRC also investigated the impact of dual enrollment for CTE students as compared to their CTE peers who do not participate in dual enrollment, enabling researchers to evaluate whether this strategy can encourage such students to obtain a postsecondary credential. This study was one of the first to use large-scale datasets to investigate the impact of dual enrollment on students’ postsecondary outcomes, and the first to investigate the impact of dual enrollment for CTE students.

Results were encouraging. In both New York City and Florida, dual enrollment participants had more positive outcomes on a range of short- and long-term measures than their similar non-participants. This held true for both the full sample and CTE students. Moreover, students from groups typically underrepresented in higher education, such as males and those from low-income families, appeared to benefit from dual enrollment participation to a greater degree than other participants.

This project was funded by the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education, U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education. A final report is available for download below.