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Using a panel of over 433,000 college students from over 600 institutions of higher education in the USA, we investigate students’ opinions of leadership skill development during their undergraduate tenure.

The data used in this analysis come from the Higher Education Research Institute, which runs the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) housed at the University of California, Los Angeles. Among others, the CIRP administers two surveys known as The Freshman Survey (TFS) and the College Senior Survey (CSS).

The present research supports the extant literature and conventional wisdom of academic and student affairs professionals with regards to engagement in leadership classes or training where students have an opportunity to increase their knowledge bases through course content, and when there are opportunities for them to apply leadership principles, the students are more likely to report an increase in leadership capacity upon completion of their collegiate degree.

If colleges and universities are serious about fulfilling their espoused visions, then it is essential that awareness of leadership courses and applied opportunities be heightened and made a strategic priority to ensure resources are allocated in appropriate places to support these key efforts. It also suggests greater collaboration between academic and student affairs, as well as other departments (e.g. athletics and centers), is needed, as well as prioritizing experiential learning.

During 2016–2020, the number of high school students enrolled at Georgia postsecondary institutions increased by over 110% and public spending on dual enrollment more than doubled (Georgia Student Finance Commission, 2020). Benefits to dual enrollment students include improved college performance and shorter time to graduation (An and Taylor, 2015; Blankenberger et al., 2017), which translates into significant tuition cost savings and higher potential wages (Partridge et al., 2020). In light of these economic benefits, this paper examines the subject-taking patterns of dual enrollment students and factors associated with successful outcomes.

The authors analyzed longitudinal records of 1,931 dual enrollees at a public, four-year institution in metro-Atlanta during and between the 2015–16 and 2018–19 academic years. They performed a descriptive analysis, partial least squares structural equation modeling and regression analysis to examine the relationships between subject enrollment patterns, academic success and student demographics.

Female students fair better academically as dual enrollees than male students. Black students enroll in fewer and less varied courses. The same is true for students from more affluent neighborhoods, who may feel less need to take advantage of dual enrollment as a pathway to collegiate success. Neighborhood affluency does not appear related to dual enrollment success. Younger dual enrollment students, unsurprisingly complete more courses but do no better or worse academically in the average course. Some academic subjects are much more strongly related to the longevity of a student's dual enrollment than others.

There is limited published research on specific subject-taking patterns and success for dual enrollment students.