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The Postsecondary Outcomes of High School Dual Enrollment Students: A National and State-by-State Analysis

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On this page

This is the 2017 study redone with a newer cohort and a comparison group. CCRC took every student who entered college for the first time in fall 2015, separated the ones who were still in high school, and followed them four years past their expected graduation. Dual enrollment students went to college at higher rates and finished at higher rates than students who arrived without them. The margin is smaller than most readers expect: 36% of dual enrollees who went straight to college finished a bachelor’s degree in four years, against 34% of those who came in with no dual enrollment at all.

Who published it
CCRC, 2024
Authors
Tatiana Velasco, John Fink, Mariel Bedoya, and Davis Jenkins
What it is
Research report
Where the data comes from
National

What it found

  • 81% of dual enrollment students enrolled in college in the first year after high school, and 51% of them started at a four-year institution.
  • 42% completed a college award within four years of finishing high school, and 29% completed a bachelor’s degree.
  • Among students who went straight to college, 36% of dual enrollees finished a bachelor’s in four years against 34% of students who started college without dual enrollment.
  • Dual enrollment students completed at higher rates than non-participants in 41 states, and 16 states showed double-digit differences.

What it does not show

  • The comparison is descriptive. Dual enrollment students were stronger students before they started, and the analysis does not adjust for that.
  • Four years is a short window: almost a third of the cohort was still enrolled with no award when tracking stopped.

How the study was done

National Student Clearinghouse records for every student entering college for the first time in fall 2015, tracked four years past expected high school completion. Revised August 2025 to correct a dataset error.

Why this matters to a family

The advantage dual enrollment students carry is real and it is narrower than the brochures suggest, which is the right way to size up a head start.

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 evidence before a decision?

Save this page and it sits on your own My FastTrack page alongside your state's deadlines and the tools. Deciding which of these findings apply to one teen, in one state, aiming at particular colleges, is what a roadmap engagement settles.

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