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The Postsecondary Achievement of Participants in Dual Enrollment: An Analysis of Student Outcomes in Two States

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This is the study that most dual enrollment brochures are quoting, usually without saying so. The authors used complete state records for two Florida graduating classes and City University of New York records for the College Now program, then controlled for demographics, high school grades, and school characteristics. Participants were more likely to finish high school, more likely to enroll in college, more likely to persist, and earned higher college grades. In New York City the effects showed up only for students who took two or more courses.

Who published it
CCRC, 2007
Authors
Melinda Mechur Karp, Juan Carlos Calcagno, Katherine L. Hughes, Dong Wook Jeong, and Thomas R. Bailey
What it is
Peer-reviewed study
Where the data comes from
Florida, New York

What it found

  • In Florida, dual enrollment participants were 16.8% more likely to enroll in college than their peers, and 7.7% more likely to start at a four-year institution.
  • Florida participants earned first-year college grade point averages 0.21 points higher, and career and technical students 0.26 points higher.
  • In New York City, College Now participants earned first-semester grade point averages 0.133 points higher than non-participants.
  • In New York City the gains came from taking two or more courses: one course showed no effect on full-time enrollment, while two or more made students 3.5% more likely to enroll full-time.

What it does not show

  • The Florida records do not show how students were doing before they took the courses, so some of the advantage may belong to the students rather than the program.
  • The New York City sample came from 19 vocational high schools, and the authors warn against reading it as College Now in general.

How the study was done

Florida student records for the 2000-01 and 2001-02 graduating cohorts, 299,685 students, plus City University of New York records for College Now participants, with regression controls for demographics, high school grades, and school characteristics.

Why this matters to a family

The authors called their own picture encouraging though not definitive, which is a fair caption for the whole field and a fair caption for any school that quotes it at you.

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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