4-Year Colleges Ride the Dual-Enrollment Wave

A few years ago, Moravian University, a small liberal arts college in Bethlehem, Pa., made an unorthodox decision: It would offer courses to local high schoolers.

It started off small, a single partnership with Salisbury High School in nearby Allentown. In 2021, 14 students were in the program. But by 2023 Moravian had expanded to four high schools, and in the last year it more than doubled the number of high school students taking its courses—a practice known as dual or concurrent enrollment—from 33 to 72. Brian Martin, Moravian’s executive director of undergraduate admissions, said the university is working to expand the program to more school districts in the region.

“We’ve seen dramatic growth in the past year alone,” Martin said.

Moravian, like many four-year colleges, began its dual-enrollment program as an equity initiative to give local high schoolers access to higher-level courses. That’s still a key part of the mission, Martin said, only now they’re banking on an enrollment windfall, too.

That hasn’t happened yet. Only five of Moravian’s 530-student incoming class came via the dual-enrollment program, a re-enrollment rate of about 1 percent.

“I’m encouraged by the dual-enrollment movement as a way for us to open the path for underserved high school students to see college as a viable option,” Martin said, “even if we aren’t seeing it directly in our numbers yet.”

It’s a common challenge for four-year institutions dipping their toes into dual enrollment. Only about 31 percent of dual enrollees at a four-year college re-enroll after they graduate from high school, according to new data from Columbia University’s Community College Research Center, and that number drops to 23 percent after one term. Meanwhile, re-enrollment rates at community colleges average about 40 percent.

Since 2019, dual-enrollment programs have been the primary source of enrollment growth for community colleges and have fueled their post-pandemic recovery. Four-year colleges confronting stagnant or declining head counts saw dual enrollment’s success at two-year institutions and wanted in on the action. From 2021 to 2024, the number of institutions with programs accredited by the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships, the primary accreditor of dual-enrollment programs, grew by 23 percent. Four-year institutions accounted for more than half of that growth, according to internal data provided by NACEP.

In 2023–24, four-year colleges made up 37 percent of the accreditor’s member institutions, up from 33 percent in 2021; this year, NACEP officials say they’ll make up close to 40 percent. There are currently 48 four-year institutions accredited to offer dual-enrollment courses, 12 of which were initially accredited in the last five years. The majority of them are public universities, but many institutions are just beginning to venture into dual enrollment. Moravian isn’t yet accredited by NACEP, though Martin said they “plan to learn more in the coming months.”

NACEP director Amy Williams said in the last two years, she’s seen a spike in inquiries and applications from four-year institutions interested in exploring dual-enrollment offerings. She said some community college leaders are worried the new interest from four-year colleges could eat into what’s become an enrollment lifeline for two-year institutions.

“My gut reaction is that someone sees a market opportunity and they start asking questions,” she said. “I’ve had many requests from states that are predominantly working on [dual enrollment] in the two-year space, and now the four-year system is interested in exploring how they can jump in.”

But first, those colleges have to figure out how to convert dually enrolled high schoolers into full-time bachelor’s degree seekers. And to do that, they need to sharpen their mission.

Michael Giazzoni, director of the University of Pittsburgh’s College in High School program, which earned NACEP accreditation in 2022, said the burst of interest from policymakers and other four-year institutions has raised important questions about the purpose of dual-enrollment programs. Are they best suited to help college-bound high schoolers earn credits and save money, or to expose underserved students to college-level courses?

The latter would require more investment, Giazzoni said. But in a state with dwindling youth demographics like Pennsylvania—one of 14 states with no official policy around dual enrollment—the long-term payoff of robust state support could be game-changing, fostering a culture of college-going among a new portion of the population.

“It’s so variable in every state. I’m working on it in Pennsylvania, and we’re trying to get legislators pointed in the right direction,” Giazzoni said. “There are tons of students who nobody is serving, so let’s get them engaged and find out what they need.”

From Community Service to Recruitment Tool

Some four-year institutions have offered dual-enrollment courses for years but are only just starting to see them as potential pipelines to full-time enrollment.

Eastern Connecticut State University launched its dual-enrollment program in 2015, before the pandemic put the practice on every enrollment manager’s radar. ECSU’s program grew slowly but steadily over the years, leveling off to enroll an average of 250 students per term by 2021. But in the last few years, ECSU’s concurrent enrollment has exploded: In 2023–24 it enrolled 500 high school students, and this year it has about 750, a 50 percent year-over-year increase.

That growth hasn’t been translating to re-enrollment yet—only around 10 percent of ECSU’s dual-enrolled students typically matriculate at the university after graduation—but university officials are working on it. Most of the concurrent courses ECSU offers are taught at the high schools themselves by certified instructors, but Chris Drewry, ECSU’s director of co-curricular academic programming, said this year the university plans on bringing more of the students to campus for visits and special events to sell them on applying full-time.

This is also the first year ECSU is sharing data on its dual-enrollment students with the admissions office. Robert Martin, ECSU’s executive director of admissions, said that will allow the university to directly recruit those students for the first time. Martin (no relation to Moravian’s admissions director) said that reflects a shift in how ECSU sees its dual-enrollment investment paying off—and a broader interest from four-year colleges in using it as a marketing tool.

“At all the schools I’ve worked at which offer dual enrollment, I’ve never had access to that information,” he said. “With all that data, I think our yield rate is going to go up.”

Colleges aren’t the only converts to dual enrollment; state policymakers are seeing the upsides, too. Drewry said the 150 percent surge in high schooler enrollment at ECSU last year was largely thanks to $3.8 billion in new state investments. ECSU’s $178,000 grant helped it bring students to the East Willamette campus and turn a local partnership into an outreach program.

In the past five years, many more states have folded dual enrollment into their higher education and career-readiness policies, creating hundreds of new grants for partnerships between postsecondary institutions and high schools. Four-year institutions looking to build up their programs—and pocket the subsidized tuition money—are capitalizing.

In Minnesota, where a state grant was established by the Legislature in 2015, there are about as many dual-enrollment courses offered by four-year institutions as there are by community colleges, according to data from the Community College Research Center. In Indiana, where investment in dual enrollment is at the heart of the state’s workforce-readiness strategy, 60 percent of high schoolers graduate with at least one dual-enrollment college credit—and more than three-quarters of those credits come from four-year universities.

Williams said that as dual enrollment undergoes a “rapid change in scope,” colleges and state higher education boards will have to meet the growing demand with greater investment and more involved oversight.

Dual enrollment “has gone from small local pockets of activity to being embraced as statewide education initiatives,” Williams said. “That is a huge shift. While states have embraced it as an initiative, they have not made structural changes to the policy and funding that undergirds that work.”

Access vs. Acceleration

Brian Martin, at Moravian, said approaching dual enrollment from an equity and access perspective is part and parcel of the institution’s enrollment strategy. The college is hoping to become a federally recognized Hispanic-serving institution, and right now it’s more than halfway there; 18 percent of the student body identifies as Hispanic, and HSIs need at least 25 percent. Martin said that by reducing the time needed to earn a degree after graduating from high school, dual enrollment could bring more of those students on board.

“These students have other commitments—they’re supporting family members or any number of other things,” he said. Dual enrollment “offers a pressure-release valve to just start them on the path towards that degree.”

John Fink, senior research associate at the Community College Research Center and the author of a sweeping new report on dual enrollment, said the way dual-enrollment programs are designed and intended to work has a lot to do with their impact on both students and the institutions offering them.

Four-year colleges that replicate the traditional dual-enrollment model of accelerated learning—essentially state-subsidized AP courses—may have less success converting high school enrollees into full-time students after graduation, Fink said. That’s because they’re usually already college-bound, and more likely to attend an institution outside their region or state.

“In some places the mindset is shifting toward access, what we call ‘deep dual enrollment,’” Fink said. “That approach has extra costs and requires a real commitment in terms of outreach and extra support. But there are increasing incentives to take it because of the better enrollment returns … it really is an opportunity for colleges to grow their pool of future students.”

To target low-income students, four-year colleges have their work cut out for them: Only 27 percent of dual-enrolled students at four-year institutions come from low-income families, compared to 34 percent of those at community colleges, according to CCRC data.

Williams said she worries that approaching dual enrollment as an enrollment-boosting strategy could exacerbate the equity problem at four-year institutions, and even dilute the quality of course offerings. As the sector keeps growing, she’s keeping a sharp eye on how it’s changing.

“Can this be an effective enrollment management strategy? Yes. Should that be the sole driving purpose? Probably not,” she said. “We’re going to see growth, but I’m totally comfortable sacrificing that for quality.”