Postsecondary Outcomes for Dual Enrollment Students

Are dually enrolled students more likely to graduate? Are they more likely to enroll in postsecondary? In this episode, we dig into the impacts of dual enrollment on a student’s pathway to and through higher education. We are joined by Tatiana Velaso, Senior Research Associate at the Community College Research Center to discuss the latest research into the postsecondary outcomes of dual enrollment students.

Transcript

Matthew Sterenberg (00:01.337)

All right, I’m here with Tatiana from the Community College Research Center. Tatiana, welcome to the podcast.

Tatiana Velasco (00:08.127)

Hi, Matthew. Thank you for having me.

Matthew Sterenberg (00:10.819)

So today we’re talking about something that the Community College Research Center put out. It’s the post-secondary outcomes for dual enrollment students. And I was really happy to see this because this is kind of the big question around dual enrollment, right? We talk about the promise of dual enrollment and what it can provide, but we haven’t really had a lot of data to support those theories. So first of all, my first question is, were you surprised by any parts of the data? Did it kind of fit what your hypothesis was before you got into all the numbers?

Tatiana Velasco (00:49.42)

That’s a great question. think I had a surprise, unsurprised and then an actual surprise. My like number that I wasn’t expecting it to be that high.

but that was sort of expected was the rate of students of dual enrollment students who go and enroll at a post-secondary institution within one year post high school. That rate being 81 percent, it’s very high like the national average of post-secondary enrollment is 70 percent including dual enrollment students. So you can imagine that among students that didn’t take any dual enrollment coursework that rate is much lower.

So there is definitely a notable, like an important gap in post-secondary enrollment there to be further explored. And this is, remember, this is national level data from 2015 before.

this explosion on dual enrollment kind of like took off. So we can expect these numbers to look slightly different and possibly even better now. So that was my surprise, unsurprised. And then the other number, the other two numbers that surprised me a lot was the share of students that take dual enrollment coursework at four-year institutions. I work at the community college research center. So of course we focus a lot on what happens at community colleges.

And we knew that the share of dual enrollment students taking those courses at community colleges was gonna be high. But this is the first time that we have a national level number on the share of students that’s taking their dual enrollment coursework at a four-year institution. What we found is that of all the students who started at a four-year institution in 2015,

Tatiana Velasco (02:35.202)

20 % of those students were either current or former dual enrollment students, meaning that this is becoming very significant for four-year institutions as well. And we will have to think about the consequences of that. And then my third surprise is the share of students who go on re-enroll at the institution where they took their dual enrollment coursework, but we can talk a little bit more about that later on.

Matthew Sterenberg (02:58.809)

Well, I think that is an interesting point because if you’re in higher ed, you know, there’s been a lot of talk about the enrollment cliff or declining enrollment. And, you know, just from a pure like pragmatic perspective, like does dual enrollment make sense for your institution to invest in? And if it’s an enrollment and admission strategy, I think if you can make a compelling argument based on the data.

then it’s kind of a win-win for everybody. It’s a pipeline, a pathway for potentially future students.

Tatiana Velasco (03:33.344)

Yes, absolutely. One of the things that we’ve been thinking about a lot is the extent to which do-one enrollment makes sense from like a business model, if I may say, for your institutions, community colleges and for your institutions as well. And one of the arguments is if you’re struggling as an institution to keep your head count up, then do-one enrollment, it’s kind of a source of students.

And this can be especially important for community colleges that have seen the largest declining in student enrollment. What we found in the data is that about a third of the students who took their dual enrollment courses at a community college went back within that first year. They went back either for one term or for two consecutive terms, meaning that there is an intention to continue at the community college.

So that’s a pretty large number. This is the first time that we have national level data that we can desegregate for states as well in the rate of re-enrollment of dual enrollment students. We do see that a lot of the dual enrollment students do lean towards going to a four-year institution post high school.

But still, it seems that the share of re-enrollment, this yield rate of dual enrollment students, it’s pretty significant and it’s really part of the motivation for post-secondary institutions to continue expanding dual enrollment.

Matthew Sterenberg (05:04.877)

And want to make sure we don’t kind of bury like one of the more important pieces of the research. And do they graduate more than non-DE students? Can you give us the numbers there? Cause I really want to make sure there’s a lot to talk about, but they enroll at a greater clip, which you, you highlighted. Do they get a degree at a faster? Well, I guess faster is one.

one metric, but within four years, do DE students have a greater likelihood of graduating?

Tatiana Velasco (05:41.352)

Right, and that’s a great question and that’s something that we tackle at least partially in this report. We don’t have a perfect comparison group of non-dual enrollment students that we can compare outcomes. So what we did is that we looked at all the dual enrollment students who were enrolled at a post-secondary institution and compared them to students without dual enrollment.

that were around 18 to 20 years old. So they were most likely recent high school graduates as well. And we give them both groups about four years to see if they complete. What we see in general when we compare these two groups is that dual enrollment students do complete bachelors at higher rates than non-dual enrollment release four years after high school. That bachelor completion, it’s about 42%.

The gap between like all students in general, DEs and non-dual enrollment release isn’t as large in terms of any award completion. But when we zoom in into specific subgroups, such as low income, Black and Hispanic students, the gap in award completion between dual enrollment students and non-dual enrollment students increases in favor of dual enrollment students. So for example, among Black students at a post-secondary institution,

the gap in award completion is 11 percentage points. So 29 % of black students who took dual enrollment will complete an award after four years of high school from high school and non-dual enrollees after four years from enrollment will have completed, 18 % of them will have completed a degree.

Matthew Sterenberg (07:23.865)

So an 11 % jump for black dual enrollment students in terms of degree attainment.

Tatiana Velasco (07:30.664)

Not even at 11%. It’s almost like, it’s 11 percentage points. But if you want to put it in terms of percentages for relative to the completion rate of non-dual enrollment students. So what we see among black students, the difference between black students who took dual enrollment and who didn’t take dual enrollment in terms of our word completion is 11 percentage points. So if you want to put this in relative to the award completion rate of non-dual enrollment.

black students, it’s more than double the completion rate of them because their completion rate is 18 percent and the completion rate of black dual enrollees is 29 percent. So it’s a pretty significant gap between these two groups. Again, this is not causal, this is not like something that we can fully attribute to dual enrollment, but the fact that the award completion rate

increases so much for dual enrollment students is really telling us something about the potential of dual enrollment for increasing award completion.

Matthew Sterenberg (09:33.325)

One of the challenges in the data though is you almost need a group of students that were dual enrollment eligible or, and, but decided not to do dual enrollment. And then you track them in terms of going to college and whether they get a degree in four years. But with relative certainty, if you’re going to college and you enroll in a post-secondary kind of by definition, wouldn’t you have

almost always been eligible for dual enrollment if you end up enrolling in post-secondary, because usually there’s, I mean, some states have a cutoff, some school districts have a cutoff, you need to have a 2.0 or 3.0. But if you’re enrolling in post-secondary, it’s almost certainly you would have been able to take dual enrollment, you would think, right? Am I presuming this correctly?

Tatiana Velasco (10:27.586)

I think you’re going in the right direction. You would expect that a lot of these students would have been eligible to take dual enrollment. What we know, especially at this moment in time, 2015, is that dual enrollment was pretty much a program of privilege and continues to be a program of privilege for a lot of students. And so the students who did get to participate in dual enrollment were pretty…

different even among Black students and even in comparison to students that ended up going to post-secondary education. For Black students, for example, what we see is that there is a large under-representation of Black students in dual enrollment across all states virtually. And among

Black dual enrollment release, what we see is that their post-secondary enrollment is the highest compared to Hispanic and low-income students. They’re the more likely to go to a four-year institution and they’re the more likely to go to a selective institution. You could interpret this as, they’re really benefiting from dual enrollment.

but it’s likely also a mix of the black students who get to participate in dual enrollment and that being a very selected population nationwide.

Matthew Sterenberg (11:47.033)

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. They’re being chosen. They’re being identified at their school. Hey, you should take advantage of this opportunity to add a few more data points. And again, if you haven’t looked at the report and you’re listening to this, check out the post-secondary outcomes of high school dual enrollment students at the Community College Research Center. Tons of data in this report. But to just add to it, do they get a degree at a higher clip?

41 states are reporting that if you participate in dual enrollment, you’re more likely to get a degree within four years. And what is interesting too is like in certain states, and you highlight this in your report, like what can state leaders learn from this? And the programmatic implementations of dual enrollment matter a lot because you do see some variance. You some states you’re looking at it you’re like, why do your dual enrollment students graduate?

at a much lower clip, like what’s happening there? And at certain States, the majority of States, it’s much higher. And so thinking about the cost, who’s participating, and then obviously just the cost of high red. and the thing that it really highlights for me is dual enrollment is one, one piece of this bigger puzzle. Like we’d all love it for it to be a silver bullet. Like if you just take dual enrollment, that’s going to be

It’s going to solve everything, but there’s still all the challenges of cost, access, and it’s very encouraging to see the data. But I also think we have larger things that we need to tackle. This is just one piece of the puzzle in terms of getting kids to be college ready.

Tatiana Velasco (13:34.55)

That’s right. And one thing that we really tried to emphasize and frame when we were presenting the state by state findings was the fact that there are differences in access to dual enrollment, especially among specific subgroups of students like Black and Hispanic students. And those differences in access and representation of dual enrollment should also serve as like an interpretation point, know, like a reference point in terms of

If in my state I see that the bachelor completion rate of dual enrollment students, it’s not as high in the rank as it is for other states, I should also read that in the perspective of how good is access and representation for these students in my state.

You were mentioning the extent to which dual enrollment is a silver bullet or not for students. And of course the fact that this in the context of

an analysis that really doesn’t have a metric of like the causal effect, right? We’re kind of like comparing different groups with different participations into an enrollment. One thing that is really powerful about dual enrollment and that, you know, has made us think for the longest time that it is really empowering students to succeed in post-secondary education is that it enables students to

participate of the college experience while they’re still in high school. And in many states, they can do that at a lower cost. Sometimes it’s even free for them, which ultimately should enable two things, especially for students from underrepresented groups. First, making the idea of a post-secondary degree possible. Sometimes people doesn’t even imagine that.

a college education is for them and the fact that you get to participate in college level coursework opens that door in your mind. But then the second is that if you take courses when you’re in high school that can be transferred to a post-secondary degree after, then you’re saving not only time, but also money. So basically, if you take the right courses,

you should be able to complete in a short amount of time.

Matthew Sterenberg (16:59.831)

And that’s kind of the data that I was, that I was looking for. And I apologize if I missed it in the report, but a lot of it was based on four years. Like what’s the data after four years? I think six year data would be really interesting. I don’t know if you have it, but like you said, part of the promise is you get college credit. You won’t have to spend as much time in college. Therefore it’s not going to cost you as much. I apologize if I missed it, but that to me, I wonder if that

Tatiana Velasco (17:08.011)

Mm-hmm.

Matthew Sterenberg (17:29.079)

if we can look at that piece of it or if I missed it in your report.

Tatiana Velasco (17:34.722)

Yeah, so one of the limitations given that we’re looking at students who start to enroll in high school in 2015 is that we don’t have enough data available to look at outcomes five or six years after their expected high school completion. So that definitely makes it a shorter amount of time for a work completion. What I will say is that a 36 %

completion rate for bachelor completion rate for dual enrollment students enrolled after four years post high school. So this is around three years post secondary enrollment. It’s pretty large. About a third of them are completing degrees four years after high school completion, which is really important. And then another piece that’s important to highlight here is that

there are a ton of students, about a third of students, that continue to be enrolled at a post-secondary institution, meaning they’re on track to complete a degree, hopefully, with the support of their institutions and their states that can achieve that. We see this group as almost like a low-hanging fruit in terms of these students are already there. They already have the exposure and the advantages that do want to offer them.

As an institution, all you need to do is to give them that push to complete the degree that they need. So yeah, I would love to have a longer time window to explore and to compare to non-dual enrollment students. But even with this relatively short window of time, I do think that the results are pretty telling of a trend.

Matthew Sterenberg (19:24.165)

I think if I’m being totally honest, there is a ton of, you could look at this report. There’s a ton of success related to what dual enrollment, the opportunities that it’s providing for learners. think candidly, what it highlights for me too, is the challenge of higher ed broadly. So you look at these numbers and you go, we’ve increased here if you participate in dual enrollment. So.

But like the challenge in higher ed is very real overall for students graduating. And I think that’s also what highlights this. So if you take kind of the macro approach of like where are we at today generally in terms of the ability for students to graduate, graduate on time, like we have a big, it’s a big problem, which is why dual enrollment is so important to keep thinking about and researching. and I, I’m, think that I have this right from report and no state did more than half.

of dual enrollment students complete a degree in a bachelor’s degree within four years. what that just think about that for everybody listening. So you have college credit, you go to college, within four years, not more than half have a bachelor’s degree in four years, which is better than the national average. But just think about kind of the problem that we have today. That’s what stuck out to me, you just start to look at the numbers and

Wow, like this, this is a big deal.

Tatiana Velasco (20:57.93)

Yeah, I agree. think that one of the big topics in the national conversation is the value of a college degree and the effort that monetary time wise, the effort that it requires to enroll and complete a degree, let alone on time. And what we see here is that, yes, dual enrollment students

do have much stronger award completion in general, bachelor, but they also complete associate degrees at higher rates and so forth. But there is really kind of like an invitation to, for example, look at this third of the enrollment students who are just not completing yet. How can we help them complete? Maybe these are students who are having to be in and out.

of their college because they have to meet other responsibilities because funding isn’t available, you know, a million of things. But if they already have these credits that they took in high school that someone invested in, either the community college that provided those credits, the state, the high school, even the student, then the way how I see it is that the investment to get those students who are already there to complete, it’s far lower than

what has already been spent in order to get them into and through whatever level of their post-secondary education they’re at. There is also a huge need to expand college completion and award completion in general, but to do it in a way that’s effective, that’s open to everyone. Again, that’s cheaper. And so again, to that, think that dual enrollment can really potentiate that.

Having said that dual enrollment is implemented so far, very different across many states. Some states are farther along in the process of expanding dual enrollment than others. So that’s also another thing to consider depending on from where you’re listening to.

Matthew Sterenberg (23:13.923)

Yeah, it would be great if we could say on average you save $15,000 by participating in this many dual enrollment courses or whatever. think that would be an amazing data point to the learner. And like you highlighted, I mean, this, have a, there’s a lot of challenges that are very difficult to solve for that are kind of bigger higher ed issues. But think about these stories. If I’m a student and I’m participating in dual enrollment.

I’m thinking about college, right? And obviously I’m more likely to go when I participate in dual enrollment, but yet something happens along that journey. And so for many years I was planning on going to college. I’m preparing for it. I’m taking courses at the community college or whatever it may be. I enroll and I like, there’s still this massive need for data on

why students don’t persist in higher ed, but that’s not, you we could probably talk for another hour on that, which isn’t really the purpose of today’s conversation. But again, strongly recommend checking out the report. Tatiana, what else should I be asking you or what do you want people to know about the research that you’ve done on the outcomes of dual enrollment students?

Tatiana Velasco (24:39.574)

I’m taking one second to think about that, but I’m thinking about two different fronts. There’s still a lot that we need to know and understand around dual enrollment, especially given the rate at which it has grown nationally. But I think in general, the reason why it is growing so much

It’s because people, institutions, students, everyone involved sees the potential on dual enrollment, right? A lot of the research that we’ve been conducting, me and my colleagues at CCRC have been conducting around dual enrollment is not only how can we expand it and make it, you know, make it worth the investment for states, students, community colleges, for your institutions and else.

but also how we can make it work, right? How we can make it work for any student who is now taking these courses, it’s now considering going to college, but really doesn’t know how to navigate that experience, right? Maybe my parents don’t know what dual enrollment is, cannot offer advice or guidance. And a lot of the work that we’ve been doing and my colleagues have been doing is around how

to address the needs of those students, especially in terms of advising, guidance, motivation, which is really important. Taking the classes that will really set you on a path of a program and a degree and a career that’s really going to take you to a good salary, yes, but also to a fulfilling career.

So that’s one part to it, but also how can we expand it in a way that it benefits all students and it gets them to complete on time in terms of what policy efforts, what finance models can help, what type of courses they should be taking. There’s a lot that happens within dual enrollment that we’re still trying to polish together. Policy makers and practitioners are…

Tatiana Velasco (26:48.95)

you know, putting what we know into practice and come back with lessons. So we’re all just trying like to make a big effort from different fronts to improve this, which we continue to find to be very promising.

Matthew Sterenberg (27:04.921)

Well, I think it’s fascinating. One more plug for checking out the paper, the post-secondary outcomes of high school dual enrollment students. I mean it when I say there’s maps table after table graphs. And if you’re curious about your state and where you stack up some of that stuff is gold because there’s something there, right? Certain States have very specific legislation or policy around dual enrollment and

It’s very instructive to potentially how states can improve. Like some of this is just at the policy level, right? How accessible is dual enrollment? I, I think John Fink was telling me about the Georgia story. Like they made dual enrollment free, unlimited years ago. And then Georgia was like, actually too many people signed up. It’s, it’s way too successful, but I actually think it’s funny because then I looked at Georgia and their bachelor’s completion rates are

phenomenal for dual enrollment students. And so I wonder, you know, for the States that they really piled on high, if that is a real game changer. Cause you could slice this data, like just from like, are the state policies? Like where do we see some commonalities? So really appreciate you joining me and sharing this and for anybody check out the work that you’re doing. Cause CCRC is really a leader in this space.

Tatiana Velasco (28:25.91)

Yeah, thank you. And also check out the data dashboard. There was so much data when we were writing this report. We generated so much data that a lot of it ended up in a data dashboard that’s with this report. So you can basically filter by your state, sector, subgroup of students, and just dig even deeper at levels that we didn’t get to do in the report. The report is already 51 pages. But thank you for having me, Matthew. Appreciate it.

There’s always more to learn.