Dual enrollment is skyrocketing. Here’s how homeschoolers blazed this path for their public-school peers.

Although dual enrollment is being touted as one of the latest high school trends, homeschoolers have long enjoyed the benefits of this method in preparing for higher education.

“We’ve been leveraging this for years and years — and we have the receipts,” Kym Kent told Stand Together’s news team.

Kent is the executive director of eXtend Homeschool Tutorial, which provides homeschool classes and curriculum through its program in Maryland. A whopping 96% of its graduating classes – many starting as juniors – use dual enrollment, Kent estimated.

Compare this with the 2.8 million public-school students participating in dual enrollment in the 2023-24 academic year, according to Stand Together – still a significant increase, rising 12.7% from the previous year.

This growth has attracted notice from other media outlets such as Chalkbeat.

“Chicago Public School students took more than 13,000 dual credit classes last year, more than double the number pre-pandemic,” Mila Koumpilova wrote in a March article.

“That massive growth in dual credit participation has won praise for sending students to college better prepared and helping them avoid crippling debt … with early data showing progress.”

’There’s got to be a better way’

Many of the homeschool families Kent sees have left conventional classrooms because of “overwhelming workloads, lack of personalization, poor academic outcomes despite heavy time investments, and environments that don’t fit children’s needs,” according to Stand Together.

“They’re stressed out,” Kent said. “Families are saying: ’There’s got to be a better way.’ We tell them, ‘Yes, there is.’”

Just like homeschooling – which stands out for its flexibility in catering to each student’s needs – the goals and outcomes of dual enrollment can also change based on the individual.

“For some students, this means graduating early,” Stand Together observed. “For others, it means reducing college costs by earning transferable credits in advance. For many, it means exploring different career paths before committing to one.”

In one example, Kent’s daughter took her first vocal class under dual enrollment as a hobby. However, this experience ultimately inspired her to make it her vocation. She eventually earned a full scholarship to attend Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute.

“Dual enrollment is a strategy to help kids get the most out of their education,” Kent concluded.

Similarly, Chalkbeat quoted numerous students who said dual enrollment had given them a head start on their college journey.

“Dual credit has risen sharply nationwide, with high school students now making up a fifth of community college students overall,” it noted.

“Research has shown these classes improve the odds of going and staying in college — especially for students of color and low-income students, who remain underrepresented in dual credit nationally.”

‘We want them ready’

Beyond the obvious academic reasons for dual enrollment, supporters also list personal benefits in developing student character and ability.

“Most of our eighth graders could walk onto a college campus right now and be at the top of their class,” Kent said, noting how students are taught critical thinking and communication skills from as early as elementary school.

“Whether they’re going to college, the military, or the trades — it doesn’t matter. We want them ready.”

However, Chalkbeat raised several concerns from critics regarding dual enrollment.

“The fast growth of dual credit and dual enrollment worries some leaders in the union representing City Colleges faculty and some rank-and-file professors, who nationally tend to be the most skeptical voices on the issue,” Koumpilova wrote.

Troy Swanson, policy chair at the Cook County College Teachers Union, thinks students could be pressured into taking dual-enrollment classes before they have developed the necessary skills.

“My biggest fear is that you expand this in the name of equity, and students get college credit, but they are not prepared when they get to college,” he said.

Meanwhile, community colleges are having trouble maintaining their introductory course offerings as so many students have taken these in high school, according to Swanson.

“To get AP (advanced placement) credit, you have to take a test,” he explained. “In dual credit, if the teacher says that you get the credit, you get the credit. There’s no standard mark of success.”

Another critic, Spanish instructor Todd Lakin at Malcolm X College, has had varying experiences at different campuses.

While he supervised dual-credit students at Whitney Young Magnet High School and the charter Instituto Health Sciences Career Academy, he turned down another high school class, “which he declined to name because he did not want to single out the campus for what he believes is a systemic issue,” Koumpilova wrote.

“Dual credit expanded too quickly, and the academic integrity of the courses can be called into question,” Lakin concluded. “We are doing students a disservice.”

‘A great bridge’ for some students

Even if students’ dual credit courses don’t end up transferring to the universities they ultimately attend, the experience can still provide benefits, noted Daphne Whitington, an English teacher at Chicago’s Julian High School.

She gave the example of one student who earned a full-time scholarship to the University of Southern California.

“The university gave her credit for all of her AP courses — and none of her 18 dual credit and dual enrollment credits,” Koumpilova observed. “But Whitington said both types of classes made the student a stronger applicant and prepared her for college.”

Whitington also argued dual credit gave her small school another option to offer college-bound students beyond a “relatively limited selection of AP,” according to Koumpilova.

“College is daunting for our kids,” Whitington explained. “But being exposed to that coursework in high school is a great bridge for them.”

For many homeschoolers, however, college preparedness is a non-issue.

By meeting twice weekly in person and independently finishing their assignments outside that timeframe, students in Kym Kent’s eXtend program are already stretching their higher education muscles in earlier academic years.

“When you’ve grown up doing that, when you hit college, you’re good,” Kent said.

Meanwhile, these homeschoolers also have the full support of their parents who realize the financial benefits of dual enrollment.

“We’re doing this because we recognize the benefit that this is going to have on [their] transcript,” Kent recalled parents saying to her, “and it’s going to save us some money down the line.”