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How Can Community Colleges Afford to Offer Dual Enrollment College Courses to High School Students at a Discount?

By Clive Belfield, Davis Jenkins & John Fink

Dual enrollment—in which students take college credit-bearing courses when still in high school—is becoming increasingly popular. Community college programs account for about 70% of the dual enrollment that more than one million high school students participate in each year nationwide. Yet dual enrollment can be a big financial burden for community colleges. In most parts of the country, community colleges receive less funding per dual enrollment student than they receive for their regular, non-dual-enrollment students. If community colleges are to continue to provide broad access to high-quality programs, they need to be able to sustain these programs. In this paper, the authors consider the economics of dual enrollment from the perspective of the community college. They illustrate how dual enrollment may not be financially sustainable in colleges and states where it is offered at a discount, but they also show how community colleges can structure their programs to be more efficient. To support the analysis, the authors describe three case studies to show the conditions under which dual enrollment is affordable and efficient.

  • Scaling Dual Enrollment Equity Pathways to College and Career Success

Download Links

Download CCRC Working Paper No. 130
February 2023
Read blog post
February 2023

Related Publications

July 2025

The Impact of Dual Enrollment on College Application Choice and Admission Success

May 2023

Dually Noted: Understanding the Link Between Dual Enrollment Course Characteristics and Students’ Course and College Enrollment Outcomes

April 2023

Assessing College-Credit-in-High-School Programs as On-Ramps to Postsecondary Career Pathways for Underrepresented Students

Additional Resources

For more policy briefs and fact sheets, visit CCRC’s Policy Resources page.

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