California study: Dual enrollment’s bigger problem is support, not access

California’s newest dual-enrollment evidence suggests schools may be asking the wrong policy question. A July 2026 EdWorkingPaper based on administrative records for about 1.74 million California public high school students finds that socioeconomically disadvantaged students are more likely to fail dual-enrollment courses at every prior-achievement level. But it also finds that students who try dual enrollment and fail still enroll in college at higher rates than comparable peers who never take it. The implication is stark: the central problem is not simply getting more students into college classes; it is building enough support so the students expansion is supposed to help can finish successfully. (edworkingpapers.com)

That reframes a live debate in California and beyond. Dual enrollment has grown from a selective opportunity into a mass strategy for college access, and community colleges are now the main engine of that growth. In California, the community-college system provides 97 percent of dual enrollment statewide, and participation rebounded after the pandemic to nearly 165,000 students, or roughly one-third of the high school class of 2025. College and Career Access Pathways partnerships have driven much of the recent expansion. (ppic.org)

The new study, Course Failure in Dual Enrollment and the Impact on College-Going, was posted in July as EdWorkingPaper 26-1517. The authors, all at WestEd, used California administrative data on four student cohorts from 2015–16 through 2018–19 and linked those records to National Student Clearinghouse college-enrollment data. That design gives the paper unusual scale and lets it connect high-school course outcomes to postsecondary enrollment, but it is still observational research rather than a randomized test of a specific intervention. Readers should treat the findings as strong evidence about patterns and consequences, not as a final causal ranking of which support strategy works best. (edworkingpapers.com)

A different diagnosis of the dual-enrollment problem

For years, the equity challenge in dual enrollment was often framed as an access problem: students from low-income families, first-generation backgrounds, and historically marginalized groups were less likely to get into the courses in the first place. That remains true nationally. The Community College Research Center says 82 percent of high schools now offer dual enrollment and about one-third of students take at least one course by graduation, yet participation still skews away from several underrepresented groups. (ccrc.tc.columbia.edu)

What the California paper adds is a sharper diagnosis of what happens after access expands. The authors say disadvantaged students’ higher failure rates do not disappear when those students have the same prior achievement as their better-resourced peers; the gap widens among higher-achieving students. In the paper’s terms, prior academic preparation does not fully explain the disparity. That matters because a common institutional response to failure is to raise entry bars through GPA cutoffs, test-score screens, or counselor gatekeeping. This study suggests that move can improve pass rates on paper while missing the deeper problem: academically capable students may still be set up to struggle by weaker advising, thinner monitoring, logistical barriers, or less access to help once a college course starts. (edworkingpapers.com)

The other finding is just as important for practice. Failing a dual-enrollment course is associated with a substantial drop in later college enrollment, which means course failure is not a harmless bump in the road. But the paper also finds that students who attempted dual enrollment and failed were still more likely to enroll in college than similar students who never participated. That creates a policy trade-off schools will have to face honestly: reducing failure by restricting access may also reduce college-going for students who, even after a bad course outcome, appear more connected to higher education than nonparticipants. That is an inference from the paper’s reported results, but it is the central one educators should wrestle with. (edworkingpapers.com)

Support, not just seats

If the problem is support for success, the operational questions change. Counselors and dual-enrollment coordinators have to care not only about who qualifies, but also about who is carrying a college syllabus without a quiet place to work, reliable transportation, a laptop, clarity about deadlines, or an adult who can intervene before one missed assignment becomes a failing grade. CCRC’s recent overview of the field points to why these design choices matter: students are less likely to pass when courses are taken on a college campus rather than at the high school, and lower pass rates are also associated with online delivery and with courses taught by college faculty instead of qualified high-school instructors. In other words, “dual enrollment” is not one thing. The structure of the experience shapes the odds of success. (ccrc.tc.columbia.edu)

California policy already leaves room for this shift in emphasis. The California Department of Education says the state’s dual-enrollment grant programs can be used not only to expand agreements and add sites, but also to provide advising, student-success services, and outreach aimed at students underrepresented in higher education. That is a meaningful detail for district leaders: the state’s own expansion tools already assume that access without support is incomplete design. (cde.ca.gov)

WestEd’s companion practice materials try to show what that support can look like. One report on Oakland Unified School District’s partnership with Peralta Community College District says the district has posted an average dual-enrollment pass rate of 83 percent over more than a decade while serving a student population made up largely of first-generation students, students from low-income backgrounds, and students of color. WestEd credits a “point person” model in which a designated staff member is present in each dual-enrollment classroom to monitor progress, connect college instructors with school staff, and step in early when students begin to struggle. That is not statewide causal proof; it is a practice example. But it is the kind of concrete staffing move the new research makes harder to dismiss as optional. (wested.org)

What schools should and should not change now

Schools should not read this paper as a reason to ignore course failure or to throw open every class without guardrails. The study does not show that all dual-enrollment offerings are equally well matched to all students, and it does not test which academic or nonacademic supports produce the best return. It is also a working paper, not yet a peer-reviewed journal article, and its evidence comes from California’s policy environment and data systems. That limits how confidently leaders elsewhere can assume the same patterns will hold under different funding rules, course formats, or admissions policies. (edworkingpapers.com)

What schools should change is their decision rule. If a campus sees higher failure among students from lower-income or first-generation backgrounds, the first response should not be to assume those students were never ready. The paper’s main contribution is showing that the disparity persists even after prior achievement is taken into account. For practitioners, that points toward a more useful sequence: review which courses students are being placed into, who checks in during the term, how fast warning signs are spotted, whether high-school and college staff share responsibility for intervention, and whether students know where to get help before the first low grade turns into a transcripted failure. (edworkingpapers.com)

As dual enrollment keeps expanding, that distinction will matter more, not less. California has spent the past decade widening the door. This paper suggests the next phase of the work is less about deciding who deserves to enter and more about deciding what adults, systems, and supports have to be in place once students do. The next question worth watching is whether districts and college partners will treat that as a staffing and design problem — and budget for it that way — before they solve their pass-rate problem by narrowing the very access they worked to build. (edworkingpapers.com)