My 15-year-old son Jack is in his second semester of dual enrollment classes through a local community college here in Massachusetts. He is estimated to be one of the roughly 2.5 million US high school students participating in college dual enrollment courses, compared to only about 300,000 dual enrolled students a couple of decades ago. Indeed, high schoolers now account for approximately 20 percent of the overall student population at community colleges, where most dual enrollment courses occur.

So what exactly is dual enrollment, and why is it becoming so popular?

Dual (or concurrent) enrollment programs enable high school students to take college-level courses through a community college or four-year university, accumulating college credits even before high school graduation. These dual enrollment courses, which are often free or available at a significantly reduced cost, can help to defray the cost of a four-year college degree at participating universities by allowing students to transfer their dual enrollment college credits and accelerate their degree attainment. Like high school Advanced Placement (AP) courses, dual enrollment courses can also signal to college admissions offices that a student is doing advanced-level work, and can sometimes enable students to skip introductory courses when they enroll at a four-year university.

Homeschoolers and unconventional learners have long known about the benefits of college dual enrollment programs as a way to get a head start on college and create a robust high school transcript that can assist in the college admissions process. In his excellent 2009 book College Without High School: A Teenager’s Guide to Skipping High School and Going to College, author Blake Boles writes: “Colleges want to see college-level logical reasoning skills, so give it to them! Community college classes work incredibly well for this purpose. Enroll at age 16 (or younger), take a handful of courses, get As and Bs and you’ve proven college-level reasoning.”

Today, the growth in homeschooling and other schooling alternatives, combined with rising college tuition costs and a widespread focus on college-readiness, have contributed to a jump in dual enrollment numbers. Between 2021 and 2023, dual enrollment figures climbed from 1.5 to 2.5 million high schoolers, with another 7 percent increase in 2024. This dual enrollment growth is occurring even as overall college enrollment declines.

For homeschoolers, microschoolers, and the ballooning cohort of kids learning beyond a conventional classroom, dual enrollment offers a valuable high school hack. These students use dual enrollment courses to make their high school years more productive and meaningful. Vida Bratton, a homeschooling mother in Maryland, says that the dual enrollment courses her 16-year-old son Micah takes at a local community college have been particularly valuable. “There are a plethora of classes Micah can choose from to take, thus offering more options than a regular high school program,” she told me. “This allows him to explore interests and take deeper dives. He is gaining experience regarding the college experience, organization, time management, and how to handle different instructors.”

For the past seven years, Micah has been enrolled at eXtend Homeschool Tutorial, a K‑12 homeschooling collaborative in Maryland that offers weekly à la carte courses in core academic subjects. His dual enrollment classes now complement those he takes at eXtend.

Kymberly Kent launched eXtend to provide both rigorous content and community for local homeschoolers, including her six homeschooled children—three of whom have already graduated from college. Dual enrollment has been a big part of her children’s homeschooling experience, as well as something that many eXtend families embrace.

“The dual enrollment process offers students the opportunity to explore areas of interest that may become springboards into their destiny,” said Kent, who was my recent guest on the LiberatED podcast where she shared about her homeschooling and entrepreneurial journeys. “My own daughter, who is now in her junior year on a full scholarship at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University studying vocal performance, literally discovered her voice as a dual enrolled student during the spring of her high school junior year,” she added.

Some microschools are being intentional about partnering with community colleges and encouraging dual enrollment participation. Nathan Fellman, founder of The Harkness House in New Hampshire, has been able to expand his middle school microschool into high school offerings by supporting students through their dual enrollment classes at a local community college. He added a van service to transport homeschooled high schoolers between both locations, enabling teens to be supported within the microschool community by peers and teachers, while taking advantage of college-level courses. “They can either get support from our teachers to do the work that they have from [the community college], or they can drop into our classes,” Fellman told me in a recent podcast interview.

Dual enrollment courses aren’t just an expedited pathway to college. They can also be beneficial for students who want to explore different career opportunities or pursue various microcredentials in lieu of a college degree. At the community college where my son takes dual enrollment classes, there are certificate programs in areas ranging from accounting and entrepreneurship to cybersecurity, web design, and paralegal studies. Many of these classes are offered online or in-person, including on weekends, offering greater flexibility for learners.

Certificate programs and more practical, hands-on educational experiences are highly appealing to today’s teens. A survey conducted earlier this year of over 1,700 11th and 12th graders found that most of them prioritize on-the-job training and courses leading to a particular professional license or certificate over a traditional college degree.

Young people today—especially those who are learning outside of conventional classrooms—have a widening assortment of pathways to college and/​or career. As the numbers of homeschoolers, microschoolers, and other nontraditional learners continue to grow, we can expect to see more creative uses of dual enrollment programs and related high school hacks.