High school students can earn college credit when they complete a dual enrollment course—that is, a course offered through a community college—and each year more students are electing to take on dual enrollment math. In an online briefing last week, PPIC researchers Rachel Yang Zhou and Hoyun Kim joined PPIC’s higher education center director Olga Rodriguez to discuss takeaways from a new report that examines student progress in dual enrollment math, especially in programs that target underserved groups.
The study focuses on math, Zhou explained, because math has long been a barrier to academic success. It is therefore striking that the number of students taking dual enrollment math has almost doubled in recent years, from over 10,000 students in 2015–16 to nearly 20,000 students in 2022–23.
“The timing of dual enrollment can help eliminate learning loss,” Rodriguez said, adding that high school requirements are not always aligned with college, which could mean a two-year gap between courses. Through dual enrollment, students can take college courses sooner—including courses required for transfer to UC or CSU—which can boost their success in college.
A wider range of students gained access to dual enrollment when the College and Career Access Pathways (CCAP) program placed more classes on high school campuses in 2016. Today, around a third of math dual enrollees take CCAP math. “Students who come from underserved groups [such as Black, Latino, and first-generation] have higher success in CCAP than other programs,” Zhou said.
Furthermore, that success continues after high school: CCAP math students enroll in community college at higher rates than their non-CCAP peers and go on to complete associate degrees at higher rates, though transfers to UC and CSU are less common. On average, dual enrollment math students have higher college-going rates—especially to UC—compared to all California high school graduates.
In interviews with the PPIC researchers, education leaders shared the hurdles they face with delivering dual enrollment programs. Navigating two separate systems—high school and college—has proven to be the main challenge for faculty, although course availability is a key concern.
While online courses are a promising and flexible solution to expand programs, they are known to be an imperfect learning platform. Schools address this imperfection by making courses hybrid, Kim explained; they offer the course and content online but have a teacher available at the high school to support students.
Zhou and Kim also indicated a need to strengthen collaboration between instructors. Dual enrollment sites are making efforts “to foster relationships between the high school teachers—who know the students—and college instructors who know the curriculum,” Kim said.
In light of strong outcomes derived from dual enrollment math, the question arises whether courses should be offered to all students. “It might look different for each school … what scaffolding might take place,” Kim said, stressing that dual enrollment is not a one-size-fits- all approach; schools need to prepare students, faculty, and teachers ahead of the course. “It takes investment to understand where students are.”
