Allowing high school students to earn both college and high school credit at the same time has gone from boutique to baseline. These dual enrollment programs blend the last years of high school with the first year of college, often in classes taught on high school campuses. They increasingly link coursework to career pathways that lead to good jobs. They are also an underrated form of K–12 public school choice.
Done well, dual enrollment gives students a first taste of college-level expectations, lowers the cost of a credential, and accelerates the path to a good first job. Done poorly, it devolves into random acts of dual credit, with scattered classes that don’t apply to a pathway, credits that don’t transfer, and equity gaps that widen instead of close.
