Creating Better Dual Enrollment Governance

January, 2026

Creating Better Dual Enrollment Governance: A Framework for Effective Policymaking Through Governance Improvements

Dual enrollment expands access to college credit in high school—but scaling it well requires more than policy. It requires governance: clear decision-making authority, durable cross-agency collaboration, and real feedback loops with practitioners. This paper offers the most comprehensive look to date at how states organize dual enrollment governance, grounded in interviews with state officials across nearly every state and territory and validated by those officials for accuracy.

Rather than prescribing a one-size-fits-all policy agenda, Creating Better Dual Enrollment Governance focuses on the systems and processes states use to ensure policy intent matches program practice—especially as participation grows and states work to close opportunity gaps. The report maps governance on a spectrum from formal systems codified in statute/regulation to informal approaches that delegate authority primarily to local institutions and districts, and it highlights what makes each approach effective in the real world.

Key Findings

• Governance matters: dual enrollment succeeds when states have clear leadership, decision rights, and cross-agency coordination that connects policy to implementation.

• Relationships drive effectiveness: formal structures work best when they build trust and collaboration—not replace it with “empty compliance.”

• Local control shapes every state’s approach: strong governance balances statewide coherence with local flexibility and innovation.

• Dedicated cross-sector staffing is essential: states make more sustained progress when someone’s job is to coordinate across K–12, higher ed, and workforce.

• States can start small and still build durable systems: the playbook emphasizes practical first steps—then scaling to councils, task forces, or P–20 structures as capacity grows.