Dual enrollment isn’t a strategy colleges choose anymore. It’s the weather. More high school students arrive with college transcripts every year, some with a full associate degree. Yet most institutions still evaluate them as if they were blank slates.
On this episode of TransferTalk, host Jay Fedje welcomes back Jaime Smith, author of The Complete Guide to College Transfer. They unpack what happens to dual enrollment credits once they land on a registrar’s desk. They also discuss what colleges must change to earn the trust of these students and their families.
Why dual enrollment keeps growing
For many families, dual enrollment is simply the easier path to rigor. Rural and small high schools often can’t staff AP courses. Homeschooled students usually have no guaranteed seat at an AP exam. A community college class fills the gap.
Jaime argues it is often the more valuable option, too. An AP score rests on one Saturday morning test. A dual enrollment grade is earned over weeks of assignments, with time to recover from a bad day. Students also learn how college works: syllabi, professors, office hours.
“What’s the best proof that you are able to succeed in college? It’s proof that you have already succeeded in college.”
Two motives, one gamble
Families pursue dual enrollment for two reasons. Some want a stronger transcript for admission. Others want to clear general education requirements cheaply, then spend expensive four-year tuition on the major, a double major or study abroad.
That second group is effectively prepaying expensive tuition with inexpensive credits. The problem is that nobody guarantees the exchange rate. Jaime has seen the whole range of policies:
- College is college. Credit transfers in, whether earned in high school or at a community college.
- No double dipping. Anything taken before high school graduation counts only toward the high school record.
- The middle ground. Courses used to meet high school graduation requirements don’t transfer; courses beyond them do.
- Mode matters. Some schools ask whether the course was online, on a college campus or taught at the high school.
Unless a family knows exactly where the student will enroll, dual enrollment as an investment is, in Jaime’s words, “a bit of a gamble right now.”
Transferability vs. applicability
Even a transfer-friendly policy can disappoint. A college may accept every credit and still ask the student to retake Calculus 1 so all engineering majors start from the same baseline. The credit transferred. It just didn’t apply.
Jaime offers a second example. A credit report may award 30 credits toward a 120-credit degree. Students assume 90 credits remain. But if those 30 credits don’t match specific requirements, they may only consume electives. That leaves the student no closer to graduation and with less room to explore.
Jay frames it as a marathon. Families know the race is 26 miles. What they need to know is whether they start at mile 5, 10 or 15.
Advice for families before the first class
Jaime’s guidance for parents of high school students starting dual enrollment:
- Check readiness first. A dual enrollment course creates a permanent college transcript. One C from age 16 can follow a student into graduate school applications.
- Choose the first course with purpose. Pick something that builds confidence, or target requirements if your state has strong articulation agreements, as California and Oregon do.
- Save the syllabus. Most colleges ask for it to decide how a course transfers. Online course access disappears when the term ends.
- Ask colleges directly. At college fairs, ask how dual enrollment credits are viewed for admission, transferability and applicability to a major. Ask whether there is a maximum number of credits accepted.
- Bring the transcript to advising. First-year advisors often assume a blank slate and may enroll students in courses they’ve already completed.
The paradox of deciding early
Dual enrollment asks 16- and 17-year-olds to plan degree paths before they know what they want to study. Jay notes that at all three colleges where he worked, the largest major was undecided.
Students who race through general education may land at a university without a major to jump into. STEM students face the opposite risk: a schedule of math, physics and chemistry every semester, with no general education courses to balance the load. Jaime suggests building exploration into dual enrollment choices, or considering a gap year.
A policy spotlight is coming
Jay and Jaime also discuss federal transfer credit policy with bipartisan support. It would require colleges to justify credit denials and give students a way to appeal. Today, many evaluations are left to individual faculty, who rarely have to explain a “no.”
That scrutiny will be hard to withstand for blanket policies, such as refusing all credit from two-year colleges. As Jaime asks: “It’s just not good enough? Who says?”
What a dual enrollment friendly college looks like
Jaime’s advice for enrollment leaders, registrars and presidents is direct:
- Adopt a “college is college” philosophy. If an accredited institution issued the transcript, stop nitpicking when, where or how the course was taught.
- Treat these students like transfers. Give a full credit review with the admission offer, showing how each course applies to general education and the major.
- Put credit next to the aid letter. Families decide by May 1. Time to degree multiplies the cost of attendance, so credit applicability is financial information.
- Publish a dual enrollment credit guide. Most colleges post an AP credit chart. Almost none offer an equivalent for dual enrollment.
- Let families upload a transcript. Jaime calls an instant “here’s how your credits would apply” tool a game changer for families.
- Train first-year advisors. These “stealth transfers” are freshmen by age but transfers by credits.
The payoff is real. Students with dual enrollment experience already know how to succeed in college. They are exactly the students colleges should court.
The end of “first time in college”
Looking five years out, both guests expect dual enrollment to keep expanding. Jay predicts that a first-time student with no credit will become the exception, not the rule. Jaime imagines three orientations: first-time, transfer, and students with dual enrollment experience.
She closes with a vision for dual enrollment as scaffolding: teaching students to read a syllabus, email a professor and manage long-term assignments. For homeschoolers, she recommends a sequence from online high school courses to online college courses to in-person college classes. By the time they reach a four-year campus, they are ready for more than the coursework.
Key takeaways
- Transferable credit is not the same as applicable credit. Families need both answers.
- Dual enrollment policies vary widely. Planning without knowing the target school is a gamble.
- Credit applicability belongs in the admission package, next to the financial aid letter.
- Colleges that offer clear, early credit reviews will win the growing dual enrollment pipeline.
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