Study after study shows the benefits of dual enrollment, or partnerships that allow students to take college courses while in high school. Dual enrollment allows students to get ahead and ease into college with a familiar, supportive framework. But the experts who analyze these programs are still asking themselves how to design these opportunities to serve the students who need them most.
Dual enrollment has been on the rise for years now. The number of high school students in college courses rose about 67% between 2002 and 2010, according to a study by the Community College Research Center. A 2019 report from the National Center for Education Statistics found that about a third of high school students took courses for college credit in the fall of 2009, when the data was collected.
