Five steps to strengthen dual enrollment

“Community colleges have earned their current moment in the sun. While private four-year institutions are seeing enrollment decline and public universities have grown modestly, community colleges have surged. They’ve added 173,000 undergraduate students last fall, nearly double the increase at public four-year schools. National Student Clearinghouse data also show that undergraduate certificate programs at community colleges grew 12.1% this spring. That’s the fastest growth of any credential type in any sector. Short-term credentials tied to the workforce grew 28% in a single year. What’s behind this? Cost is part of the answer. At two-year public schools, tuition and fees averaged $4,150 for 2025–26, against $11,950 at four-year public colleges and $45,000 at private institutions. Workforce relevance is another part. Students want credentials that lead somewhere quickly, and community colleges are delivering them. Finally, there’s a less-discussed third force that deserves more attention. The boundary between high school and community college is dissolving, and community colleges are the institutions on the other side of it. Strong dual-enrollment interest Look at dual enrollment, which allows high school students to earn college credit before graduation. It nearly doubled over the past decade, reaching 2.8 million students in 2023–24. Community colleges serve 71% of those students. High school students are now more than one in five community college enrollments. According to Clearinghouse fall 2025 data, dual enrollment was 38.4% of community colleges’ total enrollment increase. Community colleges aren’t just serving more students. They’re serving younger ones and building the first step of the postsecondary pathway career ladder before high school is finished. That’s the right instinct. For first-generation students, working family’s children or young people who’ve never seen themselves as college-bound, the most important step on the opportunity ladder is the first one. Dual enrollment, done well, builds that rung early. Students arrive at community colleges having already earned credits and navigated a college course. They’ve begun to see themselves as capable of more. Research confirms the effect. Dual-enrollment students show stronger postsecondary enrollment and degree completion rates than comparable peers who did not participate. Addressing the challenges For community colleges, this means the work of expanding access and building pathways now begins in high school corridors and guidance counselor offices, not just on their campus. But while the enrollment surge is real, so are two problems that threaten to limit what it means. The first is access. Black, Hispanic and low-income students are underrepresented in dual enrollment even as programs have expanded. One part of the problem is that in some states, students and families still pay to participate. This creates an immediate barrier for the students these programs most need to reach. Another dimension of this access problem is that many parents, especially those who never attended college, simply don’t understand how dual enrollment works or what it can do for their children. That’s not a marketing failure. It’s a relationship failure, and community colleges are the ones best positioned to fix it. The second problem is quality. Fewer than half of the states currently have comprehensive policies governing the quality of dual enrollment programs. Rapid growth and inconsistent oversight have produced a two-tiered system of strong programs in well-resourced communities and weaker ones everywhere. And even as community college enrollment rose, the awarding of associate degrees fell between 2013-14 and 2023-24. More students entering doesn’t mean more students finishing. There’s also a policy opportunity worth naming. Under the Workforce Pell provisions of recently enacted federal legislation, students enrolling in workforce training programs at community colleges are eligible for Pell Grant funding, previously limited to degree-seeking undergraduates. That change, combined with a growing dual-enrollment pipeline, creates a potential opening for community colleges. They can serve students earlier, through dual enrollment and serve working adults better, through short-term credentialed pathways supported by federal aid. The pieces are in place. What remains is connecting them with intention. Checklist for improvement Here are five steps that community colleges can take to make dual enrollment a genuine access tool for quality programs. Eliminate student costs for participation. Dual enrollment shouldn’t require families to pay out of pocket. States and institutions that have moved to free-access models have seen broader and more diverse participation. Extend dual enrollment deliberately into underserved schools. Growth concentrated in well-resourced districts doesn’t count as expanding access. Dedicated outreach staff, transportation support and intentional partnership with K-12 underresourced are necessary, not optional. Align dual-enrollment coursework with credit-bearing pathways. Credits earned in high school should transfer cleanly and count toward certificates, associate degrees and further study. A student who earns 15 credits before graduation and can’t apply them upon arrival has been shortchanged. Build advising bridges, not just credit bridges. Research on students who leave college without a credential reports that stopping out is driven by financial hardship and life circumstances, not by academic failure. Students who begin through dual enrollment need sustained advising that follows them from high school into community college and beyond. Establish quality standards with teeth. State policies should set clear expectations for faculty qualifications, course rigor, and student outcomes — and apply them consistently across programs, regardless of the wealth of the school district being served. The words “fastest-growing sector” are a description, not an achievement. The achievement comes when the students who most need a first rung on the opportunity ladder are the ones most likely to find one that leads them to a better life. The post Five steps to strengthen dual enrollment first appeared on Community College Daily .

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