How Much of a “ Running Start ” Do Dual Enrollment Programs Provide Students?

1. How Much of a “Running Start” Do Dual Enrollment Programs Provide Students? James Cowan & Dan Goldhaber Center for Education Data & Research (WWW.CEDR.US) University of Washington Bothell

2. Background on Dual Credit Programs • Dual-credit programs, which allow students to earn college credits while still enrolled in high school • Rapidly become a popular college preparatory program • 1.2 million nationally • Seen by many as a cost-effective way of increasing college readiness and college enrollment among high school students • Very little empirical research on whether these programs effect college-going behavior

3. Prior Research on Dual Enrollment Programs • Most studies compare the outcomes of dual enrollment students to other high school students using regression techniques to control for a variety of covariates (Allen & Dadgar, 2012; An, 2012; Karp et al., 2007; Swanson, 2008) and find large positive effects (12-17% pts) on college enrollment • Many use controls for academic proficiency that may be endogenous • Speroni (2011) exploits a GPA eligibility requirement for Florida’s dual enrollment in a regression discontinuity design and finds no statistically significant effect of dual enrollment on college attendance or completion

4. Three Mechanisms Through Which Dual Enrollment May Affect Students The thickness and shading of the arrows indicates the propensity of students to go to college Two-year college Four-year college Least proficient Average proficiency Most proficient COLLEGE READINESS DISTRIBUTION

5. First Mechanism: Cost Cost to students of college credits reduced Two-year college Four-year college Least proficient Average proficiency Most proficient COLLEGE READINESS DISTRIBUTION

6. Second Mechanism: Information Students learn about ability to do college work and their fit with two- and four-year college Two-year college Four-year college Least proficient Average proficiency Most proficient COLLEGE READINESS DISTRIBUTION

7. Third Mechanism: Socialization and Investment Accumulation Peer influence and banking of degree Two-year college Four-year college Least proficient Average proficiency Most proficient COLLEGE READINESS DISTRIBUTION

8. The Running Start Program in Washington • Allows juniors and seniors in public high schools to take courses at all community colleges tuition-free • Tuition is paid by school districts, which pays the receiving community college about $4500/FTE in 2010 (93% of the state basic education allotment • Estimated to be about 60% of the cost of course provision • The state estimates the total tuition subsidy cost $41.3 million for the 2009-2010 school year (about $2200/RS student subsidy) • School districts not permitted to put conditions on Running Start participation, but colleges determine eligibility based on Accuplacer or high school GPA

9. Investigating the Effects of Running Start • We focus on five outcomes: • Probability of high school graduation • Probability of college enrollment • College major • College persistence • College credit accumulation • Try to identify causal effects of Running Start: • OLS models that adjust for observable covariates • IV estimates that rely on variation in geographic proximity to RS provider + specific course offering • RD based on GPA cutoff

10. Running Start Data • Over 200,000 (11th and 12th grade) students starting over four school years, 2005-2006 through 2008-2009 • 12% of HS students over this period take at least 1 RS course • Data limitations: enrollment in a post-secondary institution is limited to the 34 community and technical colleges, four of the five in-state public universities; no data on enrollments in private colleges or out-of-state public universities • But, the above sample covers nearly 75% of students going on to college in Washington State

11. Just in Case… • OLS models suggest significant Running Start impacts on most outcomes • Large estimated effects on college enrollment, major, credit accumulation • Little estimated effect on college persistence • Negative effect on standard high school graduation • Above findings are quite sensitive to sample and conditioning variables • IV and RD results are consistent with above findings, but very imprecisely estimated so we cannot rule out null of no RS effect

12. Selected Sample Means: Outcomes 1 Year After High School Graduation

13. Selected Sample Means: Outcomes 3 Years After High School Graduation

14. Student Controls

15. OLS Point Estimates: Different Types of HS Graduation

16. OLS Point Estimates: College Enrollment

17. OLS Point Estimates: College Major

18. OLS Point Estimates: Persistence and Accumulation

19. Heterogeneous Effects of RS

20. Heterogeneous Effects of RS

21. Heterogeneous Effects of RS

22. IV AND RD Results • Instrument with measures of access to Running Start • Program w/in 2 or 3 miles; Online US History Course • Use GPA eligibility requirement at 2 colleges for RD • RD & IV results very imprecise • Suggest larger negative effect on enrollment in 4-year college initially and after 3 years • In most cases, results not inconsistent with enrollment effects of the magnitudes observed in previous studies

23. Policy Implications • Some samples and control variables are endogenous to the choice of RS participation and the use of these affects the estimated magnitudes of the RS effect • Reluctant to draw strong conclusions given the divergence between OLS and both IV and RD results • More data coming soon (additional cohorts and private in-state universities) which should help