What Role Can Dual Enrollment Programs Play in Easing the Transition Between High School and Postsecondary Education?

Interest in the links between high school and college has grown in recent years. Many argue that to smooth the transition to college for students, and to improve postsecondary success, it is necessary to develop much stronger relationships and collaboration between secondary and postsecondary systems.

Some national efforts to strengthen these relationships are building on preexisting initiatives. In this paper, the authors briefly review two of these initiatives—the coordination of high school exit and college entry standards, and Tech Prep—and then devote themselves to an examination of one rapidly growing and promising initiative, dual enrollment.

A version of this paper was published as an article in The Journal for Vocational Special Needs Education, vol. 24.

A brief of this paper, Dual Enrollment Programs: Easing Transitions from High School to College, is available for download.