Dual Enrollment Research Fund

As more high school students than ever take college courses while still in high school – known nationally by names such as dual enrollment, dual credit, concurrent enrollment, and early college high school – there is an increasing focus on what we do and don’t know about how and which policies and practices best promote student access and success. While a significant body of national research  has established dual enrollment’s value as a college access and success mechanism, more research is needed to answer the urgent questions practitioners and policymakers are asking about how to more effectively and equitably use dual enrollment to serve students and ensure their college and career success.

 

In the summer of 2022, a group of dual enrollment researchers led by Dr. Jason Taylor of the University of Utah, informed by collaboration with dual enrollment policy and practice professionals, published Research Priorities for Advancing Equitable Dual Enrollment Policy and Practice. This provided a comprehensive review of the existing literature on dual enrollment and outlined more than 150 new research questions to encourage further scholarship, aligned to the needs of policymakers and practitioners. 

 

Following the publication of this seminal resource, a new group of research, policy, and practice professionals worked to identify ten Urgent Research Questions, a distillation of the 150 research questions elevated by the 2022 publication. The Urgent Research Questions are grouped into four categories:

• Equity
• Goals & Policy
• Outcomes & Return on Investment
• Program Design

 

The time is right to answer these urgent research questions, given the robust conversations underway about dual enrollment in high schools, institutions of higher education, state agencies, legislatures, think tanks, and foundations. That is why, alongside the publication of the Urgent Research Questions supplemental, the Dual Enrollment Research Fund has been launched. 

 

The Fund is the culmination of this three year effort to assess the current body of research related to dual enrollment and create a new path forward for dual enrollment research. The Fund will provide at least $1 million in grants to support new dual enrollment research projects tied to these Urgent Research Questions, and has issued a Request for Proposals for applications for research projects that seek to do that. 

 

The intent of the Dual Enrollment Research Fund, which is supported by national funders including the Joyce Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is to seed high-quality research that advances the field’s understanding of how strong dual enrollment practices can most effectively increase student access and success in college and career, and the policies needed to support those practices. More information on the Dual Enrollment Research Fund and the Fund’s current Request for Proposals can be found at www.dualenrollmentresearchfund.org. 

 

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