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Dual‐Credit Courses and the Road to College: Experimental Evidence from Tennessee
Author(s) -
Hemelt Steven W.,
Schwartz Nathaniel L.,
Dynarski Susan M.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of policy analysis and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.898
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1520-6688
pISSN - 0276-8739
DOI - 10.1002/pam.22180
Subject(s) - precalculus , coursework , remedial education , mathematics education , dual enrollment , advanced placement , dual (grammatical number) , liberal arts education , eleventh , miller , medical education , psychology , mathematics , higher education , political science , algebra over a field , medicine , art , ecology , physics , literature , acoustics , pure mathematics , law , biology
Dual‐credit courses expose high school students to college‐level content and provide the opportunity to earn college credits, in part to smooth the transition to college. With the Tennessee Department of Education, we conduct the first randomized controlled trial of the effects of dual‐credit math coursework on a range of high school and college outcomes. We find that the dual‐credit advanced algebra course alters students’ subsequent high school math course‐taking, reducing enrollment in remedial math and boosting enrollment in precalculus and Advanced Placement math courses. We fail to detect an effect of the dual‐credit math course on overall rates of college enrollment. However, the course induces some students to choose four‐year universities instead of two‐year colleges, particularly for those in the middle of the math achievement distribution and those first exposed to the opportunity to take the course in eleventh rather than twelfth grade. We see limited evidence of improvements in early math performance during college.