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Dual enrollment in New York: the law behind it

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New York has no statute that creates a dual enrollment program. Education Law section 319 instead defines the program as a partnership between a school and a college, directs the Commissioner to adopt a statewide policy, and requires every participating school to file a partnership agreement with the state by September 1, 2026.

For what the program costs and who is eligible, start at Dual enrollment in New York. This page is the paper trail underneath it.

The statute

N.Y. Education Law § 319

Establishment of dual enrollment program policy .

The whole of New York dual enrollment law, and it is short. It defines a dual enrollment program as a partnership between at least one school district, charter school, or BOCES and at least one college that lets high school students earn transferable college credit while finishing graduation requirements. It tells the Commissioner to adopt a statewide policy with guidelines for participation and data reporting. It requires every participating school to file a partnership agreement by September 1, 2026, stating the scope and terms of the program and a protocol for sharing data, and to refile at least every five years. Nothing in it sets eligibility, price, or a credit limit, which is why those answers come from the partner college.

The administrative rule

8 NYCRR Part 101

Commissioner’s regulations on dual enrollment .

The regulation written under section 319, proposed in the State Register on September 24, 2025. Its sections cover the definition, the partnership agreement form, and the data the Department collects. The part a parent can use is the comparability requirement: the higher education partner decides whether a dual enrollment course carries the same or comparable learning outcomes, content, assessment, and rigor as the same course taught on campus. The Department declined to prescribe tutoring, advising contacts, or specific data points, leaving those to the partners, so a program with strong student support has chosen it rather than been required to provide it. The page linked here is the Department’s published assessment of public comment on the rule.

The agreement between the school and the college

Dual Enrollment Partnership Agreement Form

New York State Education Department, partnership agreement .

The document that will make New York programs comparable for the first time. Both partners complete one form together, describing the courses offered, the kinds of instructors, the costs, credit transferability, how the course is delivered, and the support services around it. Schools file through the SEDMON application in the NYSED Business Portal by September 1, 2026, and a form filed then covers the five school years through 2031. A parent asking a district what its program costs is asking for something the district now has to write down.

Agency guidance

Dual Enrollment Programs

NYSED Office of Postsecondary Services .

The Department’s own page on section 319, and the place to check the current status of the requirements. It states the statutory definition, the September 1, 2026 filing date for P-12 partners, and the start of annual data reporting in 2026-27, with the results published on the Department website by January 1 of the following school year. Once that data appears, a New York family will be able to compare districts on participation and outcomes instead of on reputation.

College Now

City University of New York, College Now .

The largest single program in the state and the one with terms written down in one place. College Now runs at CUNY undergraduate colleges for New York City public high school students, and CUNY publishes the grade averages, the credit ceiling, and the cost. For a city family this page does the work that state law does not, because the program rules are CUNY’s rather than Albany’s.

SUNY General Education Framework

State University of New York, SUNY GE policy .

What happens to the credit after high school on the SUNY side. Where a student completed a SUNY credit course in the high school that was designated as meeting a SUNY General Education requirement, campuses grant that general education credit regardless of when the student matriculates, and a campus may treat enrollment in a SUNY course taken in high school as the point of first enrollment. Families comparing a SUNY campus with a private college should read this first, because the private college makes its own decision one course at a time.

How it got here

New York proposed its first statewide dual enrollment regulation in September 2025. The Notice of Proposed Rule Making for Part 101 was published in the State Register on September 24, 2025, and the Department has since published its assessment of the comments it received. The September 1, 2026 date for partnership agreements sits in Education Law section 319 itself, so it applies whatever happens to the regulation.

Who administers it

These are the offices that answer a question about New York law rather than about one school or one campus. A district and a college can both be wrong about a state rule, and these pages are where the state's own position is published.

Frequently asked

Is there a statewide New York dual enrollment program?

No. Education Law 319 defines dual enrollment as a partnership and requires agreements and data, without creating a program, setting eligibility, or naming a price. The terms come from the college the district signed with.

What changes on September 1, 2026?

Every school district, charter school, or BOCES in a dual enrollment partnership has to file a partnership agreement form with the Education Department, describing courses, instructors, costs, transferability, and how data will be shared. The filing covers five school years.

Does any New York law say a college has to accept the credit?

Education Law 319 describes dual enrollment courses as earning transferable college credit without naming who must accept it. Inside SUNY, the General Education Framework grants general education credit for a designated SUNY course completed in high school.

Does the state pay for dual enrollment in New York?

There is no statewide funding rule in section 319. What a course costs is set inside the partnership, which is why College Now is free to New York City public school students while a SUNY campus elsewhere may charge a share of tuition.

Sources

Rules change. These were checked September 2026. Confirm the current version with your school before you act on any of it.

About FastTrack Advising

. FastTrack Advising works on dual enrollment and nothing else. We help families choose college courses a high schooler can take now that will still count toward the degree later, we check every course against the transfer rules of the colleges they name, and we stay in the picture through registration so the plan gets used. When the answer for a student is to wait a term, we say that too.

Reading the New York rules with a decision in front of you?

Save this page and the citations sit next to the state's deadlines on your own My FastTrack page; the New York guide saves separately. Which courses to take, in which order, so the credits still count at the college your teen ends up at, is the part we do with families.

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