Dual Enrollment

The term dual enrollment has been used broadly in American education to describe a complex collection of collaborative programs between two or more educational institutions or systems. In the mid-20th century, dual enrollment, often referred to as shared time, was used to describe collaborative agreements between two or more K–12 schools or school districts that allowed students from two different schools to be enrolled in programs at both schools at the same time. Enrollment in these types of dual enrollment programs can be in two different public schools or districts, though most commonly the agreements are between public and parochial schools. Parochial students take one set of courses in their home institution and are enrolled in a public school for other courses, often in a specialized curriculum not offered by the private school.

Not surprisingly, widespread discussion and debate accompanied the national development of dual enrollment agreements between public and parochial schools in the early 1960s. These agreements emerged after passage of the National Defense Education Act of 1958. Originally heralded as a way to provide indirect federal support of parochial schools, dual enrollment was widely supported by Catholic educators but not by most Protestant and Jewish educators. By 1965 a new federal education law established the foundation for an expansion of dual enrollment programs, though they are still illegal in some states. Dual enrollment opportunities still exist in American education, with many public school districts providing a wide range of academic services for pupils whose primary enrollment is in parochial or homeschools.

Dual enrollment is also used to refer to collaborative agreements between colleges and high schools that allow high school students to receive college credit for courses taken during their high school career. In some cases these classes are offered in the high school, whereas in other cases the students attend high school part-time and a college or university part-time. These types of K–12 and higher education dual enrollment opportunities emerged in part because of efforts to foster multiple pathways for student participation in postsecondary educational options. Dual enrollment is especially popular in areas where educators are trying to incentivize students of color to take college classes.

The dual enrollment concept is grounded in the fact that if students take some college, it influences not only their potential earning power but also the earning power of their children. In essence, dual enrollment emerged as an education reform because community leaders and educators were attempting to identify new ways of incentivizing young people to go to college.