Ben Mitchell
Director of Advocacy & Policy, Foundation for Tacoma Students
If you spend any time around K-12 and higher education policy you’ll quickly pick up that something called “dual enrollment” or “dual credit” is a trending topic. This refers to programs that allow high school students to take college courses and earn college credits while still attending high school. Programs like these started in the early 2000s and have scaled and developed fairly rapidly across the country with increasing investment of public dollars. At this point dual credit programs have enough prevalence and have been around long enough for there to be a solid body of evidence that the programs are generally effective at boosting college degree attainment, particularly for Black and Latino students, and students from low-income backgrounds.
But, the words “generally effective” are doing a lot of work in that last sentence. Experts agree that we’re at an inflection point with dual credit where there’s a lot of unrealized potential that needs policy attention to get the system to work better for students. Columbia University’s Community College Research Center puts it like this:
"...dual enrollment programs cannot reach [their] potential through conventional approaches, which practitioners have called "programs of privilege" because of uneven access or "random acts" because of insufficient course alignment and advising to postsecondary pathways."
Career and Technical Education (CTE) dual credit is part of this whole mix, and I’m going to use most of this post to drill into the policy dynamics and challenges around this particular area of dual credit. The snapshot is that CTE is something that is popular with students and the public, and is desired by employers because it builds a strong workforce. But the CTE dual credit system has developed bit by bit in divergent ways, and if we were to design a CTE dual credit system from scratch we would not set it up the way that it is now. The challenge for practitioners and policymakers is that we can’t really put the toothpaste back in the tube, and so we need to work with what we have in place and get it to function better for students.
What are we talking about?
At a high level, “dual credit” or “dual enrollment” is when high school students take college-level classes. From there you’ll see a lot of different spins on the ball, and there are three main ways in Washington for high school students to participate in dual credit: 1) Credit by passing a college course; 2) credit by examination, and; 3) credit by articulation.
Credit by passing a college course can be done through the Running Start or College in the High School programs.
Credit by examination refers to programs that can award college credit based on standardized exams, such as Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB).
Then there’s the case of credit by articulation, or CTE dual credit. These are courses that are focused on technical skill development and are intended to help students transition from high school into professional technical programs. Think STEM-focused courses, or courses in the skilled trades.
Dual credit is good, but getting transferable college credit is key
The bottom line is that dual credit programs work in the sense that research shows they increase high school graduation rates, college access and enrollment, credit accumulation, and college degree attainment. These positive outcomes are greatest for students that are underrepresented in college, plus there is evidence that suggests that the monetary benefits to students and the public of dual credit programs outweigh the costs.
But all of these benefits hinge on whether or not a student actually receives a transferable college credit. Without that, the value of these courses in terms of boosting college enrollment, lessening college costs, and accelerating students towards a credential and career is limited.
The process for credit-transfer varies between the different dual credit types, and some seem easier than others. With Running Start, a high school student enrolls in college courses at a college campus, and then earns college credit at that same school. College in High School removes the logistical barrier of traveling to a college campus, but in order to get college credit a student has to make sure they officially register and enroll with the college that is offering the dual credit course. For AP and IB courses, a student has to pass the course, take a standardized exam, and depending on how they score, they may earn college credit.
Washington stands out among state peers
EdTrust, a national education advocacy organization, released a helpful brief earlier this year that puts our landscape of dual credit programs in context nationally. Washington gets very high marks overall. EdTrust points to the elimination of fees for our College in the High School program, the work currently underway to improve our High School and Beyond Plan tool, and more options for students to participate in Running Start programs. They also highlight how Washington is a national leader in academic acceleration policies that automatically enroll students who show readiness — through a test score or other identified criteria — in the next advanced class in a sequence. Tacoma Public Schools was at the vanguard of this policy before it became a state law, and they deserve credit for helping to pave the way.
The issue of CTE dual credit
EdTrust also points out trends in the data that deserve additional research and scrutiny, one of which concerns CTE dual credit. The report explains that in reporting dual credit participation numbers, Washington is unique in that we lump CTE dual credit into the same category as College in the High School, Running Start, or AP. And then they also notice that it looks like the increase in dual credit participation statewide is largely driven by more students enrolling in CTE dual credit courses. Given this, we should look at if students are getting the same benefits from CTE dual credit as they would from the other kinds of dual credit courses.
The good news is that people are working on this question. The Education Research and Data Center (ERDC) published a report in 2023 that investigated the correlations between CTE dual credit participation and post high-school outcomes for students. The less good news is that the data in the report does not give a clear indication one way or the other. ERDC frames things positively and focuses on the potential of CTE dual credit. This is a good summary quote from the report (my emphasis in bold is added):
"Of the programs offered in Washington, CTE Dual Credit has the highest annual participation rate overall and historically underserved students of color and low-income students are well represented among participants. Because of their comprehensive reach, CTE Dual Credit courses are well positioned to enhance equitable access for all Washington students to earn college credit while in high school. However, little is known about which students and how many receive college credit from CTE Dual Credit and whether students go on to college after high school."
A new report from ERDC that is hot off the press this month sheds some light on the question of how well the CTE dual credit policies are working for students in terms of actually getting a college credit. What jumps out to me from the report is how cumbersome the credit-transfer process is for CTE dual credit.
Here are the steps a student has to navigate in order to get the college credit payoff:
- Enroll in a designated CTE dual credit course. (Not all high school CTE courses provide the opportunity for dual credit)
- Register in something called the Statewide Enrollment and Reporting System
- Pass the course
- Request credit transcription
- Enroll in a specific college that has already agreed to recognize the CTE dual credit course (not all colleges will do this)
- Provide their transcript to that college
- Make sure the college evaluates and approves the credit
It’s a much more burdensome process than other dual credit programs, and as best as ERDC can tell from the available data only 1% of CTE dual credit students for the most recent year that data is available end up with a college credit transcribed at a WA public institution. A percentage that low almost has to be an undercount, and ERDC emphasizes that there are large gaps in the available data. But even if in reality it’s more like 10% or 15%, given that so many students are participating in CTE dual credit, it seems that as a state we’re not fully realizing the potential benefits of these programs.
Making the Most of CTE Dual Credit
Here’s where I would like to have something concrete and actionable to offer in terms of policy change that addresses a specific problem with CTE dual credit. But because there’s so much murkiness around the data it’s difficult to say precisely what the problem or problems are, let alone set priorities. Are we trying to address specific hang-ups in one of the seven steps to CTE credit transfer? Do we need to be more rigid and differentiate CTE dual credit courses and focus on ones that are best in helping students succeed along career and college pathways? Or do we need to acknowledge that most students may take CTE dual credit courses to explore new interests, not necessarily to attain a credential, and drop the fixation on credit transfer?
There has been an ongoing research effort in our state to unpack these and other questions, and to offer recommendations. The final report from this project came out in 2022, and it lays out a lot of clear ideas to improve the CTE dual credit system. It’s a very good report, and I recommend reading the whole thing.
I see two dominant themes running through all of the various reports and research for making our CTE dual credit system more functional. The first is around the structure and focus of the CTE dual credit system. The experts seem to agree that we need to work to ensure that CTE dual credit programs in high school are clearly connected to a specific degree program or an industry certification after high school. There’s consensus in the field around the principle that our CTE systems across K-12, higher education, and the workforce need to be better aligned in terms of their curriculums, instruction, expectations, and support services. While there are disagreements on the details in these areas, at a high level people seem to be on the same page.
The second big theme is about adequate advising support for students. Here the consensus is that students need more individualized guidance on how to plan to use a CTE dual credit pathway, or why a CTE dual credit program may be a good idea. The ideal is that students will get ongoing guidance from adult advisors who can help them surface their post high-school goals, understand how CTE dual credit might align to those goals, and help them navigate the process to get a course counted towards a degree or credential. The advising support needs to be comprehensive and shared between K-12 and higher education, but it gets sticky around who owns the transition period between high school graduation and enrollment in some form of postsecondary education.
Making the Most of CTE Dual Credit
Here’s where I would like to have something concrete and actionable to offer in terms of policy change that addresses a specific problem with CTE dual credit. But because there’s so much murkiness around the data it’s difficult to say precisely what the problem or problems are, let alone set priorities. Are we trying to address specific hang-ups in one of the seven steps to CTE credit transfer? Do we need to be more rigid and differentiate CTE dual credit courses and focus on ones that are best in helping students succeed along career and college pathways? Or do we need to acknowledge that most students may take CTE dual credit courses to explore new interests, not necessarily to attain a credential, and drop the fixation on credit transfer?
There has been an ongoing research effort in our state to unpack these and other questions, and to offer recommendations. The final report from this project came out in 2022, and it lays out a lot of clear ideas to improve the CTE dual credit system. It’s a very good report, and I recommend reading the whole thing.
I see two dominant themes running through all of the various reports and research for making our CTE dual credit system more functional. The first is around the structure and focus of the CTE dual credit system. The experts seem to agree that we need to work to ensure that CTE dual credit programs in high school are clearly connected to a specific degree program or an industry certification after high school. There’s consensus in the field around the principle that our CTE systems across K-12, higher education, and the workforce need to be better aligned in terms of their curriculums, instruction, expectations, and support services. While there are disagreements on the details in these areas, at a high level people seem to be on the same page.
The second big theme is about adequate advising support for students. Here the consensus is that students need more individualized guidance on how to plan to use a CTE dual credit pathway, or why a CTE dual credit program may be a good idea. The ideal is that students will get ongoing guidance from adult advisors who can help them surface their post high-school goals, understand how CTE dual credit might align to those goals, and help them navigate the process to get a course counted towards a degree or credential. The advising support needs to be comprehensive and shared between K-12 and higher education, but it gets sticky around who owns the transition period between high school graduation and enrollment in some form of postsecondary education.
Getting from here to there
To sum things up, in Washington we need to move from a somewhat disjointed and unevenly supported CTE dual credit system, to one that combines well-structured pathways with advising and planning supports. The tension at play is that this will take time and focused policy iteration, but it’s also urgent because we’re playing catch-up with programs that are growing in popularity with students and that school districts are eager to invest in. We can’t just pause the current CTE dual credit system for a couple of years to work through all these issues. So we have to constantly harness beneficial tailwinds at the local level that offer a picture of how policy should shift at the state level; and address headwinds like lack of consistent data on student outcomes.
Doing those things will require resources in the form of money and people. And that gets at the evergreen education issue for the Evergreen State, something that deserves its own post: more adequate resourcing, plus more accountability on how well we’re using those resources.