University of North Carolina at Greensboro:

The Evaluation of Career and College Promise

About the Research Study

Career and College Promise (CCP) is North Carolina's dual enrollment program, allowing high school students to earn college credit. CCP includes three pathways: college transfer, career and technology education (CTE), and cooperative innovative high schools, such as early colleges. The CTE pathway provides access to dual enrollment courses for students to earn a certificate or diploma aligned with a high school career cluster. This project, a partnership between practitioners and researchers, represents the first formal evaluation of CCP and will make significant contributions to the CTE and dual enrollment research base.

The study has two main aims: (1) to examine the implementation, impact, and cost of the three CCP pathways, and (2) to build the capacity of participating state agencies to support a cross-sector research agenda. The study will draw primarily on statewide data from North Carolina high school students who participate in CCP between the 2012/13 and 2022/23 school years.

To examine the impact of CCP pathways on students, the research team will use a quasi-experimental design that matches participating students to nonparticipating students on a rich set of baseline covariates. The study will look at impacts at the high school, postsecondary, and workforce levels for different subgroups of students. For the CTE pathway, the project will also examine the impact of taking courses falling into different career clusters.

Study period: 5 years (2019–2024)

This project is supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305H190036 to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

We currently know very little about the implementation and impact of CTE-focused dual enrollment courses. This project will help fill this gap, providing research that can help policymakers and practitioners make better decisions, particularly around equity and opportunity.

em-dash Julie Edmunds, Principal Investigator, UNC

About the Research Team

This project is a practitioner-researcher partnership led by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) working with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, the North Carolina Community College System, and RAND Corporation. The study team includes the lead researchers from UNCG and RAND, shown below, as well as team members from the two partnering agencies.