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Dual Credit Education in Texas: Interim Report

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Texas grew its dual credit program 650% in fifteen years and then asked RAND whether it was working. The first phase combined state administrative records from 2000 to 2015 with interviews and surveys of the people running the programs. Dual credit students had better college outcomes on every measure and finished four-year degrees about half an academic year faster. RAND was careful to say what the analysis could not support: with descriptive data, it cannot conclude that dual credit caused the difference, and its own headline recommendation was to wait for the next phase before changing policy.

Who published it
RAND Corporation, 2017
Authors
Trey Miller, Holly Kosiewicz, Elaine Lin Wang, Elizabeth VP Marwah, Scott Delhommer, and Lindsay Daugherty
What it is
Research report
Where the data comes from
Texas

What it found

  • Texas dual credit students took, on average, half an academic year less to complete a four-year degree.
  • They finished with roughly the same number of semester credit hours as students who never took dual credit.
  • Just over 3% of dual credit courses were retaken during the first two years of college, and most retakes followed a poor grade in the high school version.
  • Dual credit participation in Texas grew 650% between 2000 and 2015.

What it does not show

  • The analysis is descriptive, and RAND said plainly that it cannot conclude dual credit improved student outcomes.
  • It could not explain why Black and Hispanic students participated at lower rates than White students who otherwise looked the same.

How the study was done

Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and Texas Education Agency administrative records from 2000 to 2015, combined with interviews and surveys of dual credit administrators.

Why this matters to a family

Half an academic year is what the time-savings claim looks like once somebody measures it across a whole state.

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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