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Education Outcomes

2025 Dual Enrollment Special Report

SUPPLEMENTARY CONTENT

Foundational Courses: English

At Nebraska public two-year colleges, dual enrollment participants take fewer foundational English and math courses than non-participants. For English, about 33 percent of non-participants take foundational courses while about 8 percent of participants take foundational courses. These differences in foundational course taking for English may partly explain the benefit of dual enrollment course taking for degree completion at two-year colleges, since English proficiency is less likely to be a barrier to degree completion. 

Rates and counts of foundational English course taking 

Cohort year  Dual Enrollment  Rate  Foundational  Non-Foundational  Total 
2016  Non-Participant  0.38  1,176  1,957  3,133 
2016  Participant  0.12  343  2,521  2,864 
2017  Non-Participant  0.39  1,141  1,797  2,938 
2017  Participant  0.13  392  2,592  2,984 
2018  Non-Participant  0.41  1,125  1,638  2,763 
2018  Participant  0.15  495  2,794  3,289 
2019  Non-Participant  0.44  1,115  1,416  2,531 
2019  Participant  0.16  538  2,846  3,384 
2020  Non-Participant  0.38  794  1,286  2,080 
2020  Participant  0.13  446  2,948  3,394 
2021  Non-Participant  0.35  653  1,202  1,855 
2021  Participant  0.10  329  2,962  3,291 
2022  Non-Participant  0.33  471  956  1,427 
2022  Participant  0.08  291  3,236  3,527 

Foundational Courses: Math

In math, about 32 percent of non-participants need foundational instruction compared to 18 percent of participants. These differences in foundational course taking for math may partly explain the benefit of dual enrollment course taking for degree completion at two-year colleges, since math proficiency is less likely to be a barrier to degree completion. 

Rates and counts of foundational math course taking 

Cohort year  Dual enrollment  Rate  Foundational  Non-Foundational  Total 
2016  Non-Participant  0.47  1,382  1,533  2,915 
2016  Participant  0.22  562  1,976  2,538 
2017  Non-Participant  0.41  1,086  1,582  2,668 
2017  Participant  0.19  518  2,281  2,799 
2018  Non-Participant  0.43  1,083  1,454  2,537 
2018  Participant  0.21  656  2,506  3,162 
2019  Non-Participant  0.41  957  1,397  2,354 
2019  Participant  0.20  633  2,553  3,186 
2020  Non-Participant  0.40  782  1,196  1,978 
2020  Participant  0.20  663  2,689  3,352 
2021  Non-Participant  0.37  695  1,167  1,862 
2021  Participant  0.17  598  2,935  3,533 
2022  Non-Participant  0.32  475  1,011  1,486 
2022  Participant  0.19  698  3,065  3,763 

Course Instruction Mode

Dual enrollment courses can be delivered in multiple ways: traditionally, via face-to-face instruction; online; or a hybrid of these two modes. Of the courses with known instruction modes, the majority of dual enrollment credit courses are still delivered traditionally in a classroom at nearly 53 percent. However, online courses grew more popular over the last year with 41 percent of all dual enrollment courses now taught online. About 5 percent of courses are hybrid. 

 

School Year Ending  Hybrid  Online  Traditional  Not Reported 
2012  620  2,841  24,310  3,556 
2013  1,056  13,610  31,628  3,334 
2014  615  16,986  35,341  3,040 
2015  536  19,240  34,362  3,302 
2016  387  18,696  42,966  4,098 
2017  375  19,376  49,528  5,174 
2018  361  19,935  54,361  5,672 
2019  283  19,913  57,552  5,708 
2020  623  29,574  66,564  5,822 
2021  560  33,060  70,332  4,811 
2022  662  34,203  76,586  6,295 

 

Postsecondary Award Attainment

While the purpose of dual enrollment is not necessarily for high school students to earn college certificates or degrees, some students attempt to do so. At least one Nebraska public high school, Millard South, has an early college program designed to help students earn an associate’s degree while still in high school. In 2022, most of the awards (86 percent) earned by students during or shortly after high school are associate’s versus 14 percent for certificates. Many of these students are enrolled at Millard South. 

 

Cohort Year  Associate’s  Degree Certificate 
2016  *  * 
2017  *  * 
2018  *  26 
2019  92  28 
2020  111  * 
2021  121  12 
2022  127  22 

* Data has been suppressed to protect data privacy.

Other Variables

In this section, the observed effect of different student characteristics on the likelihood of a student earning dual enrollment credit is shown. Specifically, for each of the student characteristics considered in this section, the percentage of students within each category who earned dual enrollment credit is estimated. Note that these percentages will not add to 100 percent because the percentage is the number of dual credit earners from each category, divided by the total number of students in the category. For instance, to determine the effect of single parenthood on the likelihood of dual credit attainment, the number of dual credit earners who are single parents were divided by the total number of single parents. This percentage is more appropriate for the goal of this section, compared to calculating what percentage of dual credit earners are single parents.

Gender

Students are categorized as male or female based on their educational records at a Nebraska public school or Nebraska public postsecondary.

Cohort year  Female  Male 
2016  30.4  21.8 
2017  32.0  23.0 
2018  33.1  25.8 
2019  32.8  24.3 
2020  35.1  24.6 
2021  35.9  26.3 
2022  38.4  27.9 

Assessment

ACT score data is not available for all years due to data limitations. Quintiles of the ACT composite scores were used to create score categories to calculate dual enrollment participation rates. 

Cohort year 

[3-9] 

[10-16] 

[17-22] 

[23-29] 

[30-36] 

2016 0.0 17.0 36.2 48.7 48.2
2017 * * * * *
2018 2.6 17.3 38.0 51.5 51.3
2019 0.0 16.9 37.2 48.8 47.7
2020 2.6 17.6 38.9 52.2 51.4
2021 * * * * *
2022 10.7 23.2 45.9 58.8 62.3

* Data has been suppressed.

Chronic Absenteeism

Students are categorized as chronically absent if they missed more than or equal to 10 percent of school days during high school. 

Cohort year 

Chronically absent 

Not chronically absent 

2016 

10.2 

31.0 

2017 

11.2 

32.5 

2018 

12.7 

34.8 

2019 

13.4 

33.8 

2020 

12.8 

35.6 

2021 

12.6 

37.9 

2022 

15.0 

40.8 

English Language Learner

Students are categorized as English Language Learners if at any time they participated in an English Language Learners program during high school. 

Cohort Year  ELL Participant  Non-ELL Participant 
2016  8.7  26.6 
2017  6.9  28.2 
2018  7.6  30.4 
2019  7.1  29.5 
2020  7.4  31.2 
2021  7.8  32.2 
2022  8.1  34.5 

High Ability Learner

Students are categorized as high ability learners if at any time they participated in a high ability learners program during high school. 

Cohort Year 

HAL Participant 

Non-HAL Participant 

2016 

42.6 

21.7 

2017 

42.6 

23.1 

2018 

46.5 

24.6 

2019 

45.3 

23.7 

2020 

48.4 

25.3 

2021 

50.2 

26.3 

2022 

54.7 

27.8 

Homelessness

Students are categorized as homeless if they were ever recorded as homeless during high school. 

Cohort year  Homeless  Not Homeless 
2016  6.6  26.6 
2017  9.2  27.9 
2018  10.0  30.0 
2019  10.3  29.1 
2020  11.1  30.5 
2021  8.3  31.7 
2022  9.4  33.8 

Immigrant Status

Student immigrant status is determined by time since immigration. Since immigration status can change from year to year as a student progresses through high school, the most recent designation is used. For instance, if a student was recorded as “immigrant <1 year” in ninth grade then “immigrant 1-3 years” in grades 10 through 12, this student would be categorized as “immigrant 1-3 years” in the following tables and charts. 

Cohort Year 

Immigrant 1-3 year 

Immigrant <1 year 

Immigrant >3 year 

Non-immigrant 

2016 

6.2 

8.8 

17.5 

26.7 

2017 

6.7 

7.0 

17.9 

28.2 

2018 

5.7 

5.1 

19.4 

30.3 

2019 

5.5 

4.4 

18.5 

29.4 

2020 

6.8 

2.0 

18.1 

30.9 

2021 

3.6 

3.3 

19.2 

31.9 

2022 

3.7 

3.2 

22.2 

34.1 

Single Parent

Students are categorized as a single parent if they were ever recorded as a single parent while enrolled in high school. 

Cohort Year  Not a Single Parent  Single Parent 
2016  26.2  10.6 
2017  27.5  11.0 
2018  29.5  12.4 
2019  28.6  14.5 
2020  29.9  12.5 
2021  31.1  9.0 
2022  33.1  9.6 

Special Education

Students are categorized as special education if at any time they participated in a special education program during high school. 

Cohort Year 

SPED Participant 

Non-SPED Participant 

2016 

9.8 

28.8 

2017 

11.4 

30.0 

2018 

12.3 

32.2 

2019 

13.3 

31.1 

2020 

13.6 

32.5 

2021 

13.0 

34.1 

2022 

13.8 

36.4 

These provisional results are based on certified NSWERS data as of March 13, 2025. The provisional results in this report may change because of data resubmissions by NSWERS Partners and/or Affiliates. While NSWERS strives for accuracy and reliability, official estimates should be obtained directly from the respective partners. For updated results, please contact support@nswers.org.

Learn more about Dual Enrollment in Nebraska.

Data Dictionary