Data Access Files for: Do Dual Enrollment Students Realize Better Long-Term Earnings? Variations in Financial Outcomes Among Key Student Groups in Texas

This study considers whether dual enrollment is associated with students’ earnings outcomes over a longer, ten-year time horizon after high school graduation than previously analyzed in the existing literature. Using longitudinal administrative data that span K-12, higher education, and the workforce, we conduct a propensity score analysis to understand how dual credit participation among five cohorts in the state of Texas—the 2008-2012 high school graduating classes—correlates with annual earnings measured through the tenth year post high school graduation. We find that dual credit participants realize lower earnings than non-participants during the first four years after high school graduation, but achieve higher earnings in years five through ten, netting a cumulative ten-year earnings increase of 6%. We find similar results across many student subpopulations, though smaller magnitudes of association for some, suggesting that dual enrollment relates favorably to distal measures of students’ financial wellbeing.