2024 Annual Report on Dual Credit

Published: 
September, 2024
Updated: 
September, 2024

Dual credit courses give high school students the potential to earn both high school and postsecondary credit. There are six primary dual credit programs in Washington state that are included in this report. The accompanying Dual Credit Dashboard focuses on dual credit enrollment and K–12 credit earned. This report examines new analysis of K–12 academic performance, postsecondary credit earning, and the current state of availability of dual credit by school district and how that has changed over time.

This report has two primary sections. First, new analysis related to dual credit in Washington is presented. Then, the recommendations from the previous 2022 and 2023 ERDC Dual Credit Reports are addressed.

Key Findings include:

  1. In 2021–22, most public high schools in Washington offered at least one type of dual credit indicating very few areas where students have no access to dual credit. The number of schools that offer dual credit increased in some districts between 2015–16 and 2021–22, and decreased in others. During this time, student enrollment in dual credit increased, with the majority of districts experiencing growth. Many districts had 80%–100% of students enrolled in at least one dual credit course and there were very few districts in which less than 20% of students enrolled in at least one dual credit course.
  2. Across all dual credit types, 91% of all attempted credits were earned, which was about the same as non-dual credit courses for all students. Students who enrolled in any of the dual credit types had a higher final GPA than those who did not enroll. Academic performance was examined by student group and the patterns among dual credit enrollees were similar to those seen statewide.
  3. Data quality of existing data sources has improved over the last year, but there are still large gaps in data needed to determine how many students are eligible for postsecondary credit after completing a dual credit course. For most dual credit types, the percentage of students that had postsecondary credits transcribed at a Washington public institution has remained fairly steady over the cohorts, with the exception of an increase for College in the High School (CiHS) for the last three cohorts. This was primarily due to an increase in postsecondary enrollment in CiHS, though there is variation among student groups.

To view detailed result tables, see the Appendix file.