Date of Award

4-2025

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Educational Leadership, Research and Technology

First Advisor

Louann Bierlein Palmer, Ed.D.

Second Advisor

Brett Geier, Ed.D.

Third Advisor

Janet Boyle, Ph.D.

Keywords

Dual credit, early college, educational support, school-to-work

Abstract

Dual-credit programs that allow students to earn college credentials in high school have become commonplace in the United States. Early College High Schools (ECHSs) were specifically developed to support equitable access to these programs, targeting groups that are historically underpopulated in postsecondary education (PSE). ECHSs aim to close the achievement gap, increase the number of college credentials earned by high school students, better train the workforce, and improve the life-time earnings potential of a diverse population.

The purpose of this nonexperimental quantitative study was to gather data from graduates in one Midwestern state who earned a college credential in high school. I explored the extent to which personal characteristics, school and work experiences, career and technical education course taking, and financial and college counseling received impacted respondents’ postgraduation choices. For those graduates who entered the workforce, I explored why they chose work over PSE, and their view of the value of earning a college credential in high school.

An online survey, with many skip functions depending upon previous responses, was created by the researcher, piloted, and then distributed by Ivy Tech Community College (ITCC), a state-wide college system. ITCC sent the survey to the email students had provided when they initially enrolled in dual-credit courses, which for many was seven years ago.

The responding participants included 76 such individuals who graduated from high school between 2021 and 2024. The sample included 39 graduates who were first-generation college students and 37 who were not. Only seven of the respondents did not enroll in PSE after high school graduation. None of these seven respondents attended ECHSs.

Within this study’s sample, the Indiana College Core was the most common credential earned, with variations in credential attainment based on students’ orientations toward school and work. Notably in this study, students’ orientations toward school and work correlated differently with credential types, with high orientation toward school negatively impacting technical certificate attainment, and high orientation toward work positively correlating with technical certificate attainment. The research highlighted multifaceted interactions between students’ academic experiences, work perspectives, parents’ levels of education, and postsecondary credentialing.

One unique finding of this study was that within this sample, father’s level of education had more of an influence on a respondent’s PSE matriculation patterns than mother’s. Most other studies that examined the relationship between the independent variable of parent’s educational level and the dependent variable of their child’s educational achievement found a positive correlation between mothers’ education and children’s achievement. This research study found instead that a father’s level of education influenced whether his child matriculated or not to PSE. Within the sample, children with fathers who did not graduate from high school were the most statistically likely to attend PSE. Relative importance analysis found that 62% of the variability within the study’s model was contributed by father’s level of education, and that the odds of a child of a father with less than a high school diploma attending PSE was 2.09 as compared to the baseline (father had a high school diploma).

The portion of this study that explored how graduates of dual credit programs who entered the workforce feel about their dual credit experiences found that, of the seven such respondents, most (60%) believed their high school college classes gave them a workplace advantage. Eighty percent of such respondents reported employment related to their career goals, with 50% feeling financially ahead of their college-going peers. Despite their satisfaction with immediate workforce entry, 83.3% of such respondents planned to later return to PSE. Notably, none reported receiving a bonus or higher salary due to their college credentials, suggesting a complex relationship between early credentials and immediate career benefits.

Prior to this study, there had been limited research on the outcomes and work lives of students who earned college credentials in high school and entered the workforce instead of PSE immediately after graduation. Despite a small number of participants, the results of this study add to the overall body of literature on the phenomenon of earning college credentials in high school, the transition from school to work, and student perceptions of dual-credit programs as they relate to their work and personal lives after high school.

Access Setting

Dissertation-Open Access

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