Examining the Benefits of Dual Enrollment for Communities, Sectors and Institutions

• In Event: Frontier Evidence on How Dual Enrollment Benefits Students and Communities: Evidence from States and National Data.

Abstract

Dual enrollment (DE) — high school students who take college-level courses and earn credit— has become a central policy to broaden equitable access to and attainment of higher education degrees. Since its introduction in the 1990s, DE participation has quintupled, reaching around 2.5 million students in 2023 (Fink, 2025). Prior studies, using quasi-experimental and experimental designs, have shown that DE participation increases high school completion, college enrollment and completion, and earnings, with stronger effects for underrepresented groups (Berger et al., 2013; An, 2013; Henneberger, Witzen, & Preston, 2022).

Despite its demonstrated individual-level benefits, less is known about whether DE generates aggregate gains for communities and postsecondary institutions. Currently, funding models for DE vary across states and often rely on a mix of state, local, K-12, and family contributions, with community colleges frequently subsidizing these courses through discounted or waived tuition (Fink & Jenkins, 2023). While this investment has strong student-level returns, it remains unclear whether the expansion of DE has produced broader returns—such as increased postsecondary participation and institutional revenue growth—for the communities and institutions that have invested in it. This study addresses two questions: (i) Has the expansion of dual enrollment increased overall postsecondary matriculation at the community or institutional level? (ii) Which sectors—community colleges, public or private four-year institutions—have benefited the most from this growth?

Using IPEDS data from 2001 to 2023, we proxy dual enrollment (DE) participation and first-year postsecondary enrollment to estimate the causal impact of DE growth on postsecondary outcomes. To address endogeneity concerns, we implement a shift-share instrument that captures local exposure to DE expansion. The instrument interacts with the pre-period (2001–2007) distribution of DE students across commuting zones and higher education sectors with subsequent national-level growth in DE participation. This strategy leverages plausibly exogenous variation in early local shares of DE, to mitigate bias from local, time-varying shocks to postsecondary enrollment or education demand. To interpret our results, we compute a metric we call the expansion rate: the growth in postsecondary enrollment attributed to the growth in DE in the previous years.

 Our findings indicate a 10% increase in DE participation leads to a 0.5% increase in first-year postsecondary enrollment two years later (p = 0.002), which implies an expansion rate of 20%. Four-year institutions and rural communities experience the largest relative gains. Placebo tests using commuting zone unemployment rates show no significant relationship, suggesting that DE growth is not proxying for broader local economic changes. Preliminary findings suggest 28% of the growth in postsecondary enrollment at institutions is associated with the growth in DE.  

This paper contributes to the literature by moving beyond well-documented individual-level effects of DE (Berger et al., 2013; An, 2013; Giani, Alexander, & Reyes, 2014; Allen & Dadgar, 2012; Song, Zeiser, Atchison, & Brodziak de los Reyes, 2021; Henneberger et al., 2022) and examining broader institutional and community-level impacts. 

 

 

 

Author

• Mariel R Bedoya, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Presenting Author