Dual Enrollment May Help At-Risk Students
Early college high-school programs — a.k.a., dual-enrollment programs — are growing in popularity. The programs allow high school students to take college courses and earn college credits while still in high school. Historically, the programs were geared toward high-achieving students, to keep them combat boredom. But many are now aimed at low-income students at risk of dropping out.
North Carolina is the national leader with 70 programs, but they’re also popping up in states ranging from New York to Texas to California. A new study by researchers at Columbia and Rutgers universities finds that the programs are an effective tool for improving the academic success and retention rates of high-risk students, THE Journal reports. Dual enrollment students tend to view themselves as “real college students and gain confidence and skills that can help them to excel academically,” the report says.
The journal story adds, however, that the most successful programs also have strong support systems. Some allow one-semester college courses to be “stretched” over two semesters, for example; and some strongly link the courses to careers. The researchers found a patchwork of state policies, some of which, they said, act as dis-incentives for dual-enrollment programs. They concluded that states need to develop “policies that promote greater access to these pathways into college for all students.”
Filed under: K-12 Education News
Tags: College, Education Policy, Grades 9-12, Research on Learning
