Avery Thomas begins her day bright and early at 8 a.m. at El Camino College.
With deadlines in mind, she knows she might have to skip her afternoon soccer practice.
But until then, she’s off to high school to attend the rest of her classes.
Thomas, a 17-year-old junior at North High School, is currently in her third year of dual enrollment at ECC and plans to continue in the program for a fourth and final year as a senior.
High school students are able to enroll in college courses through dual enrollment, a growing program at California community colleges, according to a report by the California Community College Chancellor’s Office measuring dual enrollment data.
Thomas’ experience with dual enrollment has taught her a lot about what it’s like to be a full-time college student in the future, she said.
“Overall, it’s been very exciting, enriching, and really valuable,” Thomas said. “I’m able to ease myself into the experience that so many people struggle with after they leave high school because they’re experiencing college workload and college schedules for the very first time.”
Though only accounting for about 9% of the student population, high school students have the highest course success and completion rates at ECC, according to the college’s Course Success and Completion Dashboard.
Among other local California community colleges, ECC has the third highest dual enrollment course completion rate for the 2023-2024 school year at 86%.
ECC is just behind Cerritos College at 87% and Cypress College at 94%, according to the report. Dual enrollment yields a course completion rate of 82% at Pierce College and 74% at Los Angeles City College.
Because students simultaneously earn high school and college credits, dual enrollment students in the Early College program — one of the dual enrollment programs offered in partnership with local high schools — are able to graduate high school with an associates degree.
Dual enrollment students also often aim for the California State Seal of Biliteracy by taking college-level foreign language courses, which is administered when students demonstrate proficiency in both English and a foreign language.
Thomas balances her high school and college workload on top of extracurriculars including sports.
“I definitely learned that high school deadlines and college deadlines are really different,” Thomas said. “In high school, an assignment is due tomorrow in class. But in college, a lot of the time, a set of assignments is due at the end of the week at 11:59 [p.m.]”
Adjusting to these differences has allowed Thomas to learn how to prioritize her responsibilities, she said.
Thomas’ end goal is to get accepted into the University of California, Los Angeles, as a sports management major. Taking up to 10 credits each college semester, she believes dual enrollment is a key factor to getting her there.
“Since the program allows us to earn our associates degree once we graduate high school, we can apply to different four-year universities as transfer students,” Thomas said. “It also saves us two years of college, which is very helpful.”
The number of students dually-enrolled in college courses during high school has increased, according to the California Community College Chancellor’s Office.
From the 2022-23 school year to the 2023-24 school year, ECC saw a 52% increase in dual enrollment, similar to other schools which also saw increases.
In dual enrollment, Cerritos college saw a 177% increase, Pierce College saw an 84% increase, Cypress College saw a 15% increase and Los Angeles City College saw a 18% increase.
For most of these schools, the increase in enrollment also saw an increase in successful course completion, aside from ECC and Pierce College, which saw 2.3% and 5.7% decreases, respectively.
Stephanie Teer, director of dual enrollment and educational partnerships at Cypress College attributes this growth to rising awareness of how dual enrollment provides students with workforce development and ultimately, a solid career pathway.
“That’s how I run my program,” Teer said. “If it’s a transfer pathway, we focus on transfer courses. If you’re interested in culinary, we focus on culinary courses for your certificate and transfer to a culinary institution. We even have an athletic pathway.”
At Cypress College, high school students don’t typically go into dual enrollment with the goal of obtaining their associates degree.
“It’s not our main focus…They have the ability to earn a certificate, but what we find is that our students start the process,” Teer said. “They just want to take GE classes and take it with them when they enroll as a freshman at a four-year institution.”
Class fees are waived for dual enrollment high school students.
Those who participate in partnership classes — ECC classes taught on high school campuses — are wholly supported, including textbooks and other class material fees, which are paid for by their high schools.
Still, these cost-free classes don’t come to the detriment of ECC, Dean of Library and Learning Resources Maricela Sandoval said.
Sandoval added that ECC still receives full FTE’s: full time equivalency rate for student enrollment. In other words, dual enrollment counts toward funds the college receives for total student enrollment.
The dual enrollment program is funded by the state, as well as by grants including the College and Career Access Pathways grant from the California Department of Education.
On top of state funding, by implementing a dual enrollment program, the college is able to maintain a deeper partnership with K-12 school districts, Vice President of Academic Affairs Carlos Lopez said.
“We dedicate a lot of service and resources at ECC to dual enrollment because we have a pretty large district here in the South Bay — we cover nine school districts,” Lopez said.
Michelle Arthur, dual enrollment coordinator, said from the college’s perspective, the goal of the dual enrollment program is to provide college credit opportunities to students who are historically underrepresented in higher education.
“Dual enrollment is, first and foremost, an equity program,” Arthur said. “There’s a lot more support. It’s no longer ‘Oh, this is meant for the gifted and talented AP student’ – it’s really a democratization of education.”
ECC’s dual enrollment program allows high school students to enroll in college courses and integrate them into their high school class schedules.
High school students can take any ECC class for which they meet the prerequisites, though ECC’s dual enrollment website provides students with a list of popular classes taken by dual enrollment students.
Lopez said the courses dual-enrolled students take can depend on two pathways: either general education courses, or a career technical education pathway which is more geared towards a certain certificate or work field experience.
However, there are some limits on classes for ninth and 10th grade students, such as physical education activity courses like boxing, or classes such as life drawing and contemporary health due to “mature content,” Arthur said.
Two types of dual enrollment are offered at ECC: individual dual enrollment and high school partnership.
Through individual dual enrollment, students can select their own courses to simultaneously earn college and high school credits.
This allows students to take as many or as little college courses throughout their high school years as they choose.
The Early College program provides participating students with a more structured dual enrollment pathway, which integrates college courses into their schedules through all four years of high school.
The program assigns students into different cohorts — a system launched in fall 2022, beginning at North High School in Torrance.
These cohorts separate students by grade level, allowing students to experience the dual enrollment process together for all four years of high school.
“Research has shown that when students are grouped together, they build a sense of community,” Arthur said. “They have a network of peers to lean into and help them hold each other accountable. They persist at higher rates than students in non-cohorted programs; it’s a best practice model to use to embed success in the program.”
North High School’s cohorts consist of 70 students each, selected after a parent orientation, an information session and the application cycle.
This school year, there were over 400 applicants from all across Torrance Unified School District, some even outside of North High School’s service area, Arthur said.
Students are selected into the Early College Program under the guidance of a rubric.
Those who aren’t selected for the program can still receive college credit through dual enrollment, North High School Assistant Principal Ge’Yanni Polk said.
“Our goal is to make sure that every student has opportunities to take a college class that they’re interested in,” Polk said. “We want to make sure that every high school student takes at least two college classes before they graduate.”
For cohorts in the ninth and 10th grade, high school teachers who have met ECC’s qualifications to teach and deliver content meet for class on their high school campuses.
“Having a high school teacher working with their own students allows for them to have that familiarity with their students, understand them and understand the ins and outs of a high school student’s day in a different way,” Sandoval said. “[It] removes a potential barrier for relationship building that I think is really important in high school.”
For 11th and 12th graders in the program, courses are taken on ECC’s campus. Taking ECC classes during regular high school hours, students can drive to ECC themselves but a bus is also provided for students who are unable to drive.
These courses are integrated into the students’ core day, meaning that college classes are a part of their high school, earning them both credits, rather than adding two to three college-level classes to an already six-course schedule.
“The students are really invested since it’s a part of their core day,” Arthur said. “They also receive a lot of support when it’s core day.”
Dual enrollment students have the same access to the college’s academic resources like the Reading and Writing Studio, tutoring and more.
However, ECC is also working on two new initiatives in collaboration with the Centinela Valley Union High School District to provide dual enrollment students with additional support.
The first project, the mentor project, brings current ECC students who are alumni from Centinela Valley Union high schools — referred to as “Unicorns,” Arthur said.
Unicorns mentor current dual enrollment students from these high schools as they progress through the program.
These mentors meet with their students once a month and assist them with life skills for college, including time management, managing stress and getting ready to graduate.
The second project, the tutoring project, involves Unicorns tutoring dual-enrolled students in career technical education courses, providing them with direct access to support.
This project will provide high school students with academic support when ECC doesn’t offer a tutor in these courses in an online environment.
High school students are given academic assistance directly from their high school campuses, from tutors who attended the same schools and are closer in age to the students, providing this program with a “peer factor,” Arthur said.
While the mentor project has launched, the tutoring project is currently in its interviewing and hiring phase, and is set to take off in the fall.
Arthur said because of the core day opportunity, there’s a lot more support for dual enrollment students, which likely contributes to the higher success rates of dual enrolled students.
This outcome also relies on the types of students that participate in dual enrollment, experts say.
“On average, students who participate in dual enrollment are often some of the higher-aspiration and higher-achieving students in the high school,” Michal Kurleander, lead researcher for Wheelhouse: Center for Community College Leadership and Research, said.
Kurleander added that high school provides students with a more structured learning environment.
“Their primary job as high school students is to be a student,” she said. “While some of those high-aspiration students absolutely exist in the regular community college population, there are also many college students who are enrolled part-time, or are juggling multiple things.”
Dual enrollment challenges younger students by giving them early access to the college experience.
Polk highlighted that early exposure to college courses helps students develop healthy habits and life skills.
“A shy student can take a college-level business class and realize, ‘You know what? I’m a leader,” Polk said. “We want to make sure our kids have an array of opportunities to figure out who they are as little people and who they want to be as adults.”
History professor Arne Jaaska, who teaches courses at Junipero Serra High School and City Honors High School as well as at ECC, said that classes of high school students are noticeably different from courses with just college students.
Teaching high schoolers requires a lot more discipline during classes, especially regarding cell-phone usage.
“In high school classes, you can’t really rely on ‘we’re all adults here.’ You need to have a bit more of a heavy-handed approach,” Jaaska said.
Still, the students approach their work in ways that lead them to success.
“They really have a lot of intellectual curiosity,” Jaaska said. “They appreciate taking a college course while they’re still in high school.”
Dual enrollment not only allows high school students to explore their careers and get a head start on college, but also gives them an opportunity to experience a more mature learning setting.
“This notion that ‘You’re too young, you can’t do college classes,’ is really kind of an old way of thinking,” Arthur said. “These students really are smarter than we give them credit for.”
