Dual enrollment (DE)—taking college courses in high school—can help improve student access to and success in college. In the past few years, California has invested heavily in improving DE access and reforming assessments for English and English as a Second Language (ESL)—especially for historically underrepresented students. Last week, PPIC researcher Rachel Yang Zhou gave us an update on the current landscape of dual enrollment in English and ESL based on a new report.
Participation has increased substantially across the state. A decade ago, only about 16% of 12th graders took dual enrollment courses, and that has increased to 30%—20% of those in English. However, far fewer ESL courses exist, and those student numbers are very low—just 206 students statewide in the class of 2024. Nevertheless, Zhou pointed out that many of their interviewees “saw ESL students as a largely untapped group in dual enrollment and expressed interest in expanding access.”
The 2016 College and Career Access Pathways initiative (CCAP) accounts for much of the recent growth. Designed to expand dual enrollment access for underrepresented students, it has been growing in popularity and participation—currently 45% of total DE English enrollment. Latino, Black, and first-generation students represent a larger share of CCAP than non-CCAP English DE participants and are more likely to meet the college composition requirement through DE. They also have higher college-going rates than their non-CCAP peers.
Noting that transfer-level course participation has increased, Zhou stressed the importance of prioritizing courses that can shorten a student’s pathway to degree or transfer to a four-year institution. DE English/ESL courses equip students with reading, writing, and critical thinking skills applicable not just to their high school and college performance, but also to their career readiness. “Although these courses are considered highly rigorous for dual enrollment,” she said, “more than 85% of students successfully completed transfer-level English.” More than 90% are now taking college composition, required at University of California and California State University.
Zhou shared that even with the positive trajectory for English dual enrollment, much work remains. In general terms, she illuminated challenges both at the college and high school levels that can make their dual enrollment partnerships unpredictable. These include budget and staffing constraints or changes that result in colleges having to prioritize general course offerings over dual enrollment. At the high schools, some see dual enrollment English courses as too close to senior year or AP English to warrant the investment.
“Dual enrollment ESL is still a relatively small but very promising area,” she said. “Multilingual learners are often better served through pedagogical approaches that differ from those traditionally used in English courses.” She recommended aligning dual enrollment courses with high school English Language Development, as well as expanding access and providing targeted supports.
Other recommendations included statewide data solutions as well as support for instructors in, for example, curriculum redesign. A statewide repository of actual CCAP agreements would help streamline how new partnerships forge theirs. Linking K–12 and college data would improve recruitment and outcome tracking, particularly for underrepresented and not already college-bound students.
Ultimately, she said, “English dual-enrollment students have higher rates of completing gateway college courses, accumulate more units, and earn higher GPAs by the end of their first college year compared with their peers who did not participate in dual enrollment. And all of these metrics are well recognized predictors of long-term college success.”
