By Erika Rayo and Aurely Garcia Tulloch
More than 2.8 million students nationwide take part in dual enrollment programs, representing a large and growing share of community college and university enrollment. Many students learn about dual enrollment through a peer or close friend, highlighting the influential role social networks play in shaping students’ awareness and participation.
Yet while peer networks can help students access dual enrollment, they do not ensure that students who participate feel a sense of belonging. Our own high schools didn’t create intentional spaces for dual enrollment students to connect and reflect on their shared identities as both high school and college students. When we later transferred—Erika to a California community college and Aurely to a Florida university—we found these institutions similarly lacked clear structures to recognize and support former dual enrollment students. Without this support, current dual enrollment students may feel isolated, and former dual enrollment students might become “stealth transfers” who too often slip through the cracks because they are not well served by programs for first-time college students or transfers.
As more students question the value of higher education, and colleges and universities struggle to retain and grow their enrollment, institutions are overlooking a population already committed to a postsecondary pathway that can thrive with the proper supports. One thing colleges and high schools can do to build community, a sense of belonging, and a college-going culture among dual enrollment students is to create dual enrollment clubs at high schools and dual enrollment student advisory panels at colleges and universities. As former dual enrollment students, we have developed some concrete steps that others can consider as they plan dual enrollment student organizations on their own campuses.
Designing a Dual Enrollment Student Club at Your High School
High school is an essential time not only for academic preparation but for students to build confidence for the next steps in their education journey. The transition to college requires a careful balance of guidance and independence to ensure that students are entering college feeling prepared, excited, and confident in their own abilities. Dual enrollment can be a great stepping stone. On-campus communities, such as high school clubs, can expand on the strengths of dual enrollment.
A dual enrollment club can enhance student engagement and learning. Students can collaborate in otherwise mundane online classes, have vulnerable and real conversations about their goals with peers, and increase their confidence in planning their education after high school.
These communities should be assigned qualified student mentors who have lived through the same experience as the students. To ensure that students receive up-to-date information, college student mentors should be overseen by community college staff and faculty who are partnering with high schools to support their dual enrollment program. This leads to the following club organization:
- College counselors:
- act as the main point of contact for student mentors
- help high school students enroll in the dual enrollment program
- ensure that information student mentors provide to high school students is accurate (approving slideshows, activities, etc.)
- Student mentors:
- are former dual enrollment student leaders qualified to oversee high school students
- host meetings for all dual enrollment students
- host regular meetings for their assigned dual enrollment students
- collaborate with other student mentors to plan activities and information sessions, create flyers, etc., to respond to the needs of their students and reach out to the broader high school community
- High school dual enrollment students:
- convene in small groups that allow for deep connections
- participate in group and program activities that encourage exploration of career goals
The main purpose of the community is to provide dual enrollment students with a space to connect with their peers and explore their goals. Club meetings can address the following questions:
- How can you utilize dual enrollment to reach your goals?
- What can you do as part of the dual enrollment program at your school?
- How can you balance your college classes with high school classes?
- What can you learn from former dual enrollment students?
- How can dual enrollment students navigate financial aid?
- What opportunities, such as extracurriculars, internships, or apprenticeships, are available for students to engage with the college outside of classes?
The club can also visit the college to show students the resources available to them and provide time and space for students to collaborate in person in their online classes. With a strong team, the club will help students graduate from high school with a greater sense of who they are, clarity about their goals, and knowledge about paths available to achieve them.
Creating a Dual Enrollment Student Advisory Panel at Your College
Dual enrollment student advisory panels serve multiple purposes for community colleges and universities. CCRC’s dual enrollment student advisory panel is a model that institutions can adopt to recruit current and former dual enrollment students, understand their experiences, and tap into student perspectives about various institutional priorities. These priorities may include efforts to advance equitable dual enrollment, meet strategic enrollment goals, or foster a community that remains engaged with the institution post-graduation. By providing direct input on what best serves them, dual enrollment student advisory panel members become active partners in the institution’s success.
At CCRC, our dual enrollment student advisory panel reviews and provides input on our research, creates blog and social media content to showcase various options for dual enrollment coursetaking, and represents the voices often unheard in dual enrollment research and policymaking. The dual enrollment student advisory panel has helped ensure that CCRC’s research speaks to the lived experiences of dual enrollment students and that its DEEP framework for expanding access to dual enrollment reflects what dual enrollment students want from their programs and educators.
To form CCRC’s national dual enrollment student advisory panel, we started by creating two flyers (one for dual enrollment staff and one for students) outlining the purpose of our panel, eligibility criteria, participant expectations, and benefits.
- The staff flyer described the background on our dual enrollment study and the importance of including the student voice as a part of our research. We emphasized our desire for students from historically underrepresented backgrounds to join this panel, and that we were looking for both current and former dual enrollment students so we could learn about various coursetaking experiences.
- In our student flyer, we listed expectations, the commitment period, and what students would do (e.g., co-present with us, write blogs, provide feedback on research material). We also listed the benefits, including a stipend and the opportunity to champion equitable dual enrollment practices, and how to apply via video or written prompts on a Google form.
We sent these two flyers to the National Alliance for Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships (NACEP) listserv, which includes dual enrollment staff across the country, and posted them on dual enrollment researchers’ LinkedIn pages. In two weeks, we received over 400 applications. We choose 11 students representing 10 states, a number of underrepresented populations (e.g., rural students, those with disabilities, multilingual learners, and students from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds), and various dual enrollment experiences.
Over the past year, we met with students for virtual team meetings, one-on-ones, activities such as writing blogs and social media posts, and even in-person at events where we co-presented. The students have written blogs about experiences not often captured in conversations on dual enrollment and have grown our social media following significantly. We continue to engage with these students regularly via email, a dedicated messaging platform, and phone.
Although we used our advisory panel to support and inform our research, colleges can create advisory panels like ours to ensure that their dual enrollment programming is responsive to their student’s experiences and provides supports for former dual enrollment students as they transition to higher education. Without CCRC’s dual enrollment student advisory panel, our work would not be as relevant to what students are experiencing today.
Erika Rayo is a former dual enrollment student from California and member of CCRC’s Dual Enrollment Student Advisory Panel. Aurely Garcia Tulloch is a research analyst at CCRC and founder of the Dual Enrollment Squad social media community.
