KCTCS Dual Credit and Dual Enrollment Students

A look at Enrollment Trends, Demographics, Student Success, and Outcomes

Executive Summary

Background

The number of high school students enrolled in courses with the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) has grown substantially in recent years despite a significant decline in overall enrollment. From 2012-13 to 2018-19, total enrollment at KCTCS decreased by 20.7%, while the enrollment of high school students increased by 65.8%. Dual credit courses, which encompass around 90% of high school students enrolled at KCTCS, save students time and money by allowing for the attainment of college credits at a reduced rate while still in high school. Dual credit participants are more likely than nonparticipants to graduate from high school, to go to college, and to complete college degrees.

Enrollment in dual credit courses has been of growing interest for Kentucky higher education institutions as evidenced by the passage of House Bill 206 in April 2017, which established the Kentucky Dual Credit Scholarship program. Thus, it is important for KCTCS to monitor and understand the impact of increasing high school enrollment on important measures of student success. This report provides an update and extension to the 2017 report released by the Office of Research and Policy Analysis (ORPA) and details the demographics, student success, and outcomes of the KCTCS high school student population.

Purpose of the Report

The purpose of this report is to provide an updated accounting of high school students enrolled at KCTCS. The report offers an in-depth look at topics concerning the success and growth of dual credit and dual enrollment education (DC/DE) at KCTCS and explores the potential causes of recent trends. The report covers the time period from 2012-13 to 2018-19 and utilizes both fall and academic year cohorts at KCTCS. The report explores recent trends in DC/DE education at KCTCS from multiple perspectives in terms of time, demographics, and outcomes. The report focuses on outcomes such as credential completion, matriculation, and transfer behavior. The report also explores the impact of course location, course modality, course success, low-income status, and being underprepared for college on various student outcomes. To explore the recent trends in DC/DE education, the report utilizes both descriptive and inferential methods that offer a robust collection of statistical results. To aid in the presentation of the results, the report is organized in two sections that focus on the descriptive and inferential results, respectively.

Research Questions

1. What is the volume and rate of high school enrollment at KCTCS and to what extent have these values changed over time?
2. What is the volume and rate of high school enrollment at KCTCS by gender and race/ethnicity?
3. Where do KCTCS high school students come from and what is the rate of enrollment by county high school junior/senior population?
4. How successful are KCTCS high school students in terms of course pass rates, matriculation, and earning credentials?
5. What types of courses are KCTCS high school students taking and are there differences by gender and race/ethnicity?
6. What kinds of credentials do KCTCS high school students earn (e.g. Technical v. GenEd)
7. What variables explain student outcomes for KCTCS high school students?

Key Definitions

The list of key definitions below describes terms used in the report that require introduction prior to the description of methods and key findings. It is important to note that the study utilizes data on all high school students enrolled at KCTCS and not dual credit students exclusively. Additionally, where possible this report describes and explores outcomes for high school students in both fall terms and academic years to provide a more comprehensive picture of DC/DE enrollment at KCTCS. Furthermore, because the report focuses on outcomes that require time to achieve (e.g., completing a credential), several analyses are limited to high school students that are estimated to be seniors based on their age at the start of the academic year.

• Dual Credit (DC) students take college-level classes that simultaneously provide both high school and college credit that count toward a postsecondary degree/credential and a high school diploma.
  
  
• Dual Enrollment (DE) students are still in high school and enrolled in a college-level class at the same time. However, the coursework does not meet high school graduation requirements and only college credit is earned.
  
  
• High School Students: In this report, the term “high school students” is used to refer to the combined DC/DE population. Data limitations prevent researchers from identifying whether a high school student was enrolled as a dual credit student prior to Summer 2016. Thus, the report relies on high school students as the unit of analysis.
  
  
• Fall Cohorts (Fall 2012 – Fall 2018): Students are counted in the cohort if they were enrolled at KCTCS while still enrolled in high school during a fall term.
  
  
• Academic Year Cohorts (2012-13 – 2018-19): Students are counted in the cohort if they were enrolled at KCTCS while still enrolled in high school any time during the academic year.
  
  
• Senior Cohorts: Students are counted in senior cohorts if they were age 17 or older by August 1 of the academic year. Students enrolled in multiple school years at 17 years of age or older were assigned to the most recent (max) academic year in which they enrolled.

Analysis

The descriptive section of the report utilizes various exploratory data analysis and visualization techniques to organize a large amount of statistical results into an understandable format. This includes charts, graphs, and maps encompassing enrollment trends, demographics, student success, and outcomes across time and for different cohorts. The inferential section of the report utilizes various logistic regression models to provide insights and data-driven explanations for high school student matriculation to credential-seeking, completion, and transfer to four-year institutions. This allows for statistical evidence to be compiled that provides probabilistic explanations for the associations between the outcome variables and factors believed to be important for dual credit and dual enrollment students.

Key Findings

• Despite overall enrollment declines, the enrollment of high school students at KCTCS increased dramatically in recent years. Between fall 2012 and fall 2018, the number of high school students enrolled at KCTCS increased by nearly 60% (+5,895 students). From academic year 2012-13 to academic year 2018-19, KCTCS experienced a 65.8% increase in high school enrollment (+7,830 students). As a result of these increases, high school students now constitute about 20% of the overall KCTCS student body, more than double the proportion from 2012-13 levels.
  
  
• As with the overall KCTCS student population, the proportion of high school students identifying as underrepresented minorities (URM) is increasing. URM students represented 18.9% of all credential[1]seeking students and 13.6% of all high school students in 2018-19. Compared to 2012-13 levels, these represent increases of 2.0 and 4.0 percentage points, respectively. However, despite these gains, data show stagnation in closing the gap between credential-seeking URM enrollment and high school URM enrollment over the most recent four years. This finding is concerning given the opportunity DC/DE courses have to close achievement gaps for this population.
  
  
• KCTCS high school students are increasingly taking courses online and at KCTCS locations. Despite this shift in modality and location, course pass rates remain extremely high. From 2012-13 to 2018- 19, the pass rates of high school students were consistently around 93-94%. This finding is true when analyzing courses in fall terms and within the entire academic year. Pass rates of URM students consistently lag 3-6% behind the rate of non-URM students, but some progress has been made in recent years to reduce this gap.
  
  
• Increases in overall high school enrollment over the timeframe of the current study have been accompanied by corresponding decreases in the percentage of high school seniors matriculating to KCTCS within one year and three years of their expected high school graduation date. However, this decrease has been less pronounced, and in some cases, non-existent for URM and male students.
  
  
• KCTCS high school enrollment leads to improved completion outcomes for students. For KCTCS high school students who matriculate to credential-seeking at KCTCS, the thee-year or 150% graduation rate is substantially higher than the overall rate reported for KCTCS to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). For example, the three-year completion rate for high school seniors in 2014-15 was 38.7% (high school seniors in 2014-15 who matriculate would be included in the KCTCS cohort for graduation rate tracking in fall 2015 or later). The three-year graduation rate of 38.7% is 7.7 percentage points higher than the three-year graduation rate for all KCTCS students in the fall 2015 cohort. URM students matriculating to KCTCS after graduating high school also achieve increased completion rates, but not to the extent of the overall student population (three-year completion rate for URM high school seniors in 2014-15 was 22.8% or 0.6 percentage points higher than the rate for all URM students over the same time period).
  
  
• About 80% of high school seniors matriculated and/or earned a credential and/or transferred to a four[1]year institution. An additional 10% of high school seniors entered the workforce directly upon graduating high school. Researchers were unable to account for the remaining 10% of high school seniors.
  
  
• Being female increases the odds of matriculating, earning credentials, and transferring. Additionally, females are less likely to matriculate to technical programs when compared to males but are more likely to earn technical credentials. URM students generally fare worse than non-URM students on the key outcome measures. URM students are less likely to matriculate, less likely to earn credentials, and less likely to transfer.
  
  
• Taking courses exclusively at a KCTCS location or at mixture of KCTCS and high school locations generally increased the odds of matriculating and earning credentials when compared to taking courses exclusively at a high school. Taking courses exclusively at high schools increases the odds of transferring but decreases the odds of matriculating.
  
  
• Taking courses exclusively in-person while in high school decreases the likelihood of matriculating and earning a credential. However, this finding is not significant when the sample is limited to inperson courses at KCTCS locations, indicating that this outcome tends to occur only for students taking courses exclusively in-person at high school locations.
  
  
• Taking technical courses increases the odds of earning a technical credential and taking GenEd courses increases the odds of earning a GenEd credential. However, whereas taking technical courses also increases the odds of matriculation to credential-seeking, taking GenEd courses does not.
  
  
• Taking exclusively technical courses while in high school decreases the odds of all outcomes involving transfer to a four-year institution. Alternatively, taking GenEd courses exclusively or a mix of technical and GenEd courses increases the odds of transferring; matriculating and then transferring; and matriculating, earning a credential, and then transferring.
  
  
• Passing courses generally increases the odds of earning a credential in both technical and GenEd programs but does not significantly influence matriculation rates.
  
  
• Low-income students are more likely to earn a credential within one and three years when compared to non-low-income students. Additionally, low-income students are more likely to earn a technical credential. Students who are underprepared for college have a lower likelihood of earning a credential when compared to students who are prepared for college.

Implication

• Dual credit and dual enrollment students increased in volume and as a percentage of the overall KCTCS enrollment.
  
  
• Dual credit and dual enrollment education lead to positive outcomes for KCTCS high school students including higher matriculation and credential completion rates.
  
  
• Dual credit and dual enrollment education had a positive effect on URM outcomes but URM students lagged behind non-URM students in terms of matriculation, credential completion, and transferring to four-year institutions.
  
  
• There was substantial county-level variation in high school enrollment at KCTCS suggesting some counties are highly involved with dual credit and dual enrollment education with KCTCS while other counties have relatively low rates high school enrollment with KCTCS.
  
  
• Gender, race/ethnicity, course location, course modality, course type, and course success all play an important role in the success and outcomes of KCTCS high school students.
  
  
• Overall, attachment to KCTCS and exposure to the “college experience” stood out as important indicators of success for KCTCS high school students. Efforts to improve the overall experience for high school students enrolled at KCTCS should focus on creating more opportunities for students to take courses at a KCTCS campus.

Section 1: Descriptive Analysis

The series of tables, figures, and graphs below provide and in-depth descriptive analysis of dual credit and dual enrollment education at KCTCS. The purpose of the descriptive analysis is to provide an overview of the most important variables related to high school student demographics, success, and outcomes while providing context to the inferential models presented later in the report.

Data and Methods

Data sources for this report include the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE), the United States Census Bureau, the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, and KCTCS’ institutional database (the Decision Support System).

Sample

The sample used in this report includes all high school students who enrolled in at least one course with KCTCS between the years 2012 and 2018 (N = 86,375). Several of the analyses used a subset of the full dataset that only contained high school seniors (N = 60,483). The descriptive analysis explores both fall[1]term and academic year cohorts.

Analytic Strategy

The analytic techniques applied in the descriptive section of the report are based in methods of exploratory data analysis that are used to manipulate and extrapolate data from multiple databases. Additionally, multiple queries were developed using DSS in order to facilitate the calculation of various metrics. Multiple data visualization techniques were employed to organize a large amount of statistical results into an understandable format. These data visualization techniques include charts, graphs, and maps. The descriptive analysis provides a look at enrollment trends, demographics, student success, and outcomes across time and for different cohorts.

Results