Dual credit courses give high school students the potential to earn both high school and postsecondary credit. This report and accompanying dashboard address the requirements in RCW 28A.600.280 through collaboration with statewide agency partners. While the dashboard focuses on the required metrics of dual credit enrollment and K–12 credit earned for student cohorts through 2024, this report examines new analyses for the required metrics of K–12 academic performance and postsecondary credit earning. It also addresses previous report recommendations and introduces additional analysis of students enrolling in College in the High School for postsecondary credit since the implementation of SB 5048 in the 2023-24 academic year.
Key findings:
- Students are earning high grades despite the rigor of dual credit courses. The distribution of K–12 course grades were relatively similar across all course types, with a larger proportion of dual credit courses resulting in letter grades of A than non-dual credit courses. Exam-based dual credit and College in the High School (CiHS) had the highest rate of at least a C/Pass for the K–12 course (each over 90%). Career and Technical Education-Dual Credit (CTE-DC) and Running Start had rates slightly higher than non-dual credit courses.
- The 2024 cohort had a 15-percentage point increase over the 2023 cohort in students enrolled in K–12 CiHS that opted to concurrently enroll for postsecondary credit. The students in the 2024 cohort had one year under 2SSB 5048, which removed the tuition fees for concurrent postsecondary CiHS enrollment starting in the 2023–24 academic year. The increase in the concurrent postsecondary CiHS enrollment rate was seen across all student groups, though to different degrees. Consequently, gaps between some historically advantaged and marginalized students increased, such as for low-income students (from 8.8 to 9.7 percentage points), while others decreased, such as for students from different federal Race/Ethnic categories (from 28.2 to 25.5 percentage points). Additional years of data are required to determine if this pattern will continue or reverse.
- Of the 21% of course records for the 2024 cohort that had a dual credit designation, 6% had multiple dual credit designations. There were course records with up to four dual credit designations found. Advanced Placement (AP) and CiHS had the highest rates of cross-designation at 19% and 31%, respectively. CiHS was the most commonly cross-designated type for exam-based dual credit courses and AP was the most commonly cross-designated type for CiHS and CTE-DC courses. In cases where a course has multiple designations, the high school would list each dual credit type on the high school transcript, and the student would have the opportunity to choose the method of earning postsecondary credit. However, the student can only receive postsecondary credit through one method.
Please cite this report using the following suggested citation:
Dehlbom, L. & Fumia, D. (2025). Annual report on dual credit: Update on performance and credit earning. Washington Office of Financial Management, Forecasting and Research Division, Education Research and Data Center (ERDC). https://erdc.wa.gov/publications-and-reports/2025-annual-report-dual-credit
