State Contexts, Local Markets: U.S. Public Four-Year Universities’ Role in Offering Dual Enrollment Programs

Given the surge of dual enrollment programs in the United States, this study focuses on the relationship between public four-year universities’ offering of dual enrollment programs in the context of in-state and within-proximity community colleges offering similar programs. This study is guided by the classic supply and demand perspective in higher education to understand public four-year universities’ behaviors in offering dual enrollment programs and the size of these programs. Using a national dataset, we found that public four-year universities, especially non-doctoral institutions, do not seem to compete with nearby community colleges to offer similar dual enrolment programs. However, non-doctoral public four-year universities are responsive to student needs in dual enrolment in state overall, and they supplement community colleges’ role to supply dual enrolment programs when needed.