Contract Open

Outcomes Associated with Dual Enrollment Programs

NCEE Evaluation Division Postsecondary, Adult Education, and Choice Studies

Program: Higher Education Act

Award amount: $1,626,321

Awardee:

AnLar, Mathematica

Year: 2025

Duration: 4 years 6 months (09/29/2025 - 03/31/2030)

Project type:

Exploration

Contract number: 91990023D0007

Background

Dual enrollment is a key postsecondary credit accumulation strategy that can be implemented in several Higher Education Act-authorized programs. Dual enrollment has increased dramatically in the past two decades, growing from approximately 800,000 students during the 2002-03 school year to nearly 2.5 million students—about one third of all 11th and 12th grade public high-school enrollments—in the 2022-23 school year. This study will examine the effects of dual enrollment participation on higher education outcomes, including college enrollment, college persistence, credit accumulation, time to degree, college graduation, student loan debt levels, and aggregate tuition costs. Existing research on these topics has studied dual enrollments in single-state settings; this study will extend the evidence base from prior studies by examining the effects of dual enrollment in three selected states.

Project Activities

Research question

What are the effects of dual enrollment participation on student postsecondary outcomes?
What is the relationship between the effects of dual enrollment and key program characteristics?
How do differential impacts of dual enrollment vary by student characteristics?

Structured Abstract

Design

The first part of the project will use national data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) to document student outcomes across the national dual enrollment landscape. The second part of the project will analyze outcomes of dual enrollment in three states that vary in dual enrollment policies and implementation, have a substantial proportion of students participating in dual enrollment, and have state longitudinal data systems that track student participation in dual enrollment, characteristics of dual enrollment courses, and student postsecondary outcomes. The design will use propensity score matching to measure the effects of dual enrollment by identifying comparison students similar to students before they took dual enrollment courses. The study will also examine the relationship between the effects of dual enrollment and key program characteristics, as well as how those differential impacts vary by student characteristics.