Dual Enrollment: A Tool to Raise College Preparedness

Beginning this fall, all 19 high schools in the District of Columbia Public Schools will have at least one college partner where students can pursue dual enrollment credit.

It’s a significant development, enabling high school students to enroll in approved college courses, taken on a college campus, and simultaneously earn high school and college credit at no cost to the student. Our higher education partners are Georgetown University, George Washington University, Howard University, and the University of District of Columbia.

Research and experience show that dually enrolled students are more likely to graduate from high school and to enroll and persist in college. Instinctively, this makes sense. By spending time in a college classroom environment while still in the relatively safe space of home and high school, students gain a real understanding of what is required to succeed. They also gain momentum toward their degree, in terms of credit accumulation and reduced time (and money spent) in college.

As a school district, dual enrollment gives us a close, real-time look to how our students are performing in postsecondary coursework. The feedback helps us improve our college preparedness programming and academic curricula.

Five Factors

Essential ingredients of our district’s college partnership agreements are:

 Roles and responsibilities. Identify key points of contact at both the high school and college who will support students and handle registration issues.

 Data sharing. The district works closely with university partners to monitor the success of our students who enroll at their institutions. These data help us to identify areas of improvement in programs and practices. If we see dually enrolled students regularly struggling in college writing requirements, we can inform district colleagues responsible for curriculum and teacher professional development. When a group of dual enrollment students reported to us they didn’t feel comfortable seeking help from their professors, we worked with school staff to develop their self-efficacy skills. We also tag our dual enrollment students in our data system and watch for significant trends in their secondary or postsecondary outcomes.

 Cost responsibilities. To ensure equal access, we do not want students to be responsible for any associated costs (tuition, fees, textbooks, transportation). We identify in advance which party is responsible for particular costs.

 Program logistics and rules. Clarify application procedures, the number of courses students are allowed to take, the total number of students each university will accept annually and expectations for student behavior and attendance. From our experience, this section is the most important in the agreement — the universities need to know they will have final say on the student selection process and can establish limits on the number of students and schools that can be involved. No one wants to bite off more than they can chew, and so it is best to start on small scale, then expand after a year or two of success.

 Eligible courses. We found that partnership programs are most successful when they limit eligible courses to a relatively small number. Our approach is to cluster students into courses that align well with their high school coursework, are likely to count for articulated credit by other postsecondary institutions, and ideally are taught by an instructor who understands how to assimilate high school students into a college environment.

We believe this process allows district and college staff to forge strong, trusting relationships and to build a team of people collectively invested in the academic growth of high school students.

Successes to Date

In 2015-16, 193 students earned nearly 350 college credits. This fall, we expect more than 200 to dually enroll, and we have memoranda of understanding with several additional universities in the area to expand on the current four.

It is rewarding to see students develop their college “sea-legs” while still in high school. They and their families feel more equipped to make smarter, more informed college choices as a result of their dual enrollment experience.

As a school district, we are learning right along with them about how we can more effectively prepare our students to succeed in college.