Hosts Jeff Selingo and Michael Horn talk dual enrollment with John Fink, a senior research associate at the Community College Research Center at Columbia University. About 88% of high schools offer dual enrollment, which can improve high school grades, college enrollment, and degree completion rates. Yet concerns remain about whether the quality of some college-level courses taught by high school teachers meets the same rigor as taught by college professors.
Dual enrollment also posits some issues for institutions themselves. While they can be a source of enrollment for community colleges, there’s debate over the sustainability of these programs, especially given the costs of providing additional support and advising for dual enrollment students. Fink argues that the returns are worth these investments.
“Yes, there’s an upfront investment to do that, but this is where we get back to the incentives. We see that there are some real strong returns both in terms of growing the field of college-educated folks in communities, but also in terms of creating a future supply of students coming back to college.”