Like many public two-year colleges across the country, Flint Hills Technical College in Emporia, Kansas, has embraced dual enrollment, a program that allows high school students to simultaneously take college-level courses, usually for credit and often without paying tuition.

What sets Flint Hills apart is its preponderance of students in dual enrollment (DE): 83% of the total, according to an analysis by the American Association of Community Colleges of federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Systems (IPEDS) figures for 2022-2023, which also shows that 10 community colleges drew at least 62% of their total enrollment from high school students.

Many higher education advocates worry about the fiscal stability of colleges with high percentages of dual-enrollment students, but the variety of approaches to DE across the country means that at least some of them have a viable path and good reasons for their approaches.

Following state legislation

For Flint Hills, state legislation carved the DE path for career and technical education (CTE) students. Since 2012, the state has provided high school students with state-funded college tuition in approved technical courses and the opportunity to complete industry-recognized credentials in their last two years of high school, says Caron Daugherty, president of Flint Hills.

“The advantages are the opportunities for students in high school to complete a certificate and perhaps begin earning a living and competitive wage in their select industry upon graduation from high school,” she says, noting that the college works with 12 to 15 high schools in its seven-county service area. “The technical programs supported by Excel in CTE [the state legislation] include programs that lead to high-wage, high-demand careers.”

As in any state that supports secondary students enrolling in college-credit courses, the legislature receives continuous requests to boost funding to sustain the need, Daugherty says.

“Flint Hills Technical College welcomes the opportunity to serve these students,” she says. “We also encourage the state to continue to fund this initiative as it grows and becomes more appealing to Kansas families.”

Retaining challenges

Like many community colleges, Flint Hills has faced challenges in retaining DE students after high school to complete their associate of applied science degree, Daugherty says.

“One of the college’s initiatives in its strategic enrollment management plan is to increase that matriculation number,” she says. “We have hired a student success navigator to … work with that population and help students understand the importance and value of completion.”

A lower conversion rate can create fiscal constraints because state statute prevents technical colleges from levying local taxes; Flint Hills’ primary revenue sources are tuition and state levies, Daugherty says. And those revenue sources need to be at a certain level because technical education is expensive to produce, especially if a college is running programs like dental hygiene or welding technology — which require equipment and gases and carry significant personnel costs to cover everything from a low student-to-faculty ratio, to needing a dentist on staff for the hygiene program.

“We monitor profit-loss statements and focus on those return-on-investment variables to ensure we are providing our students an affordable higher education experience that allows them to accomplish their career goals,” she says.

Given Flint Hills’ 98% placement rate in 2024, she adds, “Students have a low debt, even if they pay out-of-pocket without scholarships or did not take advantage of the Excel in CTE program. We are ever mindful of that balance.”

Daugherty hopes to learn more about how to retain dually enrolled students as undergrads.

“It might be working with industry partners to help them understand the value and importance of degree-level potential, and the wages that might go with that,” she says.

A wide range of factors and influences — navigators, advisors, faculty, administration, high placement ratios, low faculty-to-student ratios, industry outreach and engagement, and cohort models — all work together to support such enrollment and retention initiatives, Daugherty says.

“We celebrate the success of these students and their access to higher education while in high school, as well as their opportunity to minimize their higher education debt,” she says. “In the two-year sector, we all pivot. We are nimble. We adjust and recalibrate. We have high engagement with our communities. The struggles caused by dual credit will continue. Our response and navigation of that model is our strength.”

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