Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

A report by Boston-based education nonprofit Jobs for the Future urges policymakers to expand dual enrollment after determining that high school students who take college courses are more likely to attend and graduate from college than those who do not, the Huffington Post reports. Results showed that high school students who completed a college course before graduation were nearly 50 percent more likely to earn a college degree from a Texas two- or four-year college within six years than students who had not participated in dual enrollment. According to the report’s findings, 54.2 percent of dual enrollment students earned some form of college degree, compared to 36.9 percent of non-dual enrollment high school graduates. Branching off that, 47.2 percent of high school graduates who had taken college courses while still in high school went on to earn a Bachelor’s degree, compared to 30.2 percent of non-dual enrollees. The study tracked 32,908 Texas students for six years, beginning when they graduated from high school in 2004. Half were “dual enrollment” students, meaning they completed college courses while in high school that awarded both high school and college credit, and half were not. According to the report, both groups were otherwise similar in academic and social background…

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