Dual Enrollment Hits a Wall When Teachers Aren’t Trained

Dual enrollment is supposed to be the “cheap head start” everyone agrees on: high school students earn real college credit, families save money, and local employers get a stronger talent pipeline.

Wisconsin’s story shows the uncomfortable truth: dual enrollment doesn’t scale on good intentions. It scales on instructor capacity. And right now, capacity is stuck behind a very specific bottleneck—teacher qualifications that mirror college faculty requirements.

If you work in education, workforce development, or talent strategy, this matters for one reason: dual enrollment is workforce development infrastructure. When it stalls, the skills pipeline stalls with it—especially in rural districts and high-poverty schools that can’t “just hire another qualified person.”

Wisconsin’s bottleneck: dual enrollment requires “college-qualified” teachers

The core issue is straightforward: many Wisconsin dual-enrollment courses require teachers to meet the same credentials as college instructors—often a master’s degree plus 18 graduate credits in the specific subject area.

That’s not a small hoop. It’s a multi-year commitment for a working teacher who is already grading, coaching, advising clubs, covering classes, and trying to survive the school calendar.

The EdSurge/Wisconsin Watch reporting puts real numbers behind the problem:

• In Wisconsin, students earning college credit have surged; the tally has more than doubled in recent years.
• In 2023–24, one in three community college students in the state was a high schooler.
• Teacher retention is already fragile: a state analysis found 4 in 10 new teachers leave teaching or leave Wisconsin within six years.

Those facts collide in a predictable way: the state wants more dual enrollment, students want it, employers benefit from it—but the system relies on a workforce (teachers) that’s already stretched thin.

Why the credential rule is so hard to “policy away”

Credential requirements aren’t just bureaucratic stubbornness. They’re tied to accreditation and quality control, and Wisconsin’s technical colleges moved toward stricter standards after the Higher Learning Commission’s 2015 guidance.

Even though those guidelines were later softened (the commission walked them back in 2023), many institutions had already adopted the higher bar. Reversing that isn’t as easy as issuing a memo, because colleges are accountable for course rigor, transferability, and consistency.

That creates a real governance tension:

• K–12 systems prioritize access and student support.
• Colleges prioritize instructor qualifications and course integrity.

Dual enrollment lives in the crack between them.

Dual enrollment is an equity tool—until staffing makes it selective

Dual enrollment expands opportunity when it’s broadly available. It becomes a new form of inequality when only well-resourced schools can staff it.

Wisconsin Policy Forum analysis (cited in the reporting) found that small, urban, or high-poverty schools are least likely to offer dual-enrollment courses. That pattern matches what I’ve seen in other states, too: when programs depend on scarce credentials, the schools with the most administrative capacity and staffing flexibility tend to win.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• A larger suburban district can distribute credentialed teachers across campuses.
• A small rural district may have one teacher covering multiple preps—and no realistic way to add graduate coursework.
• A high-poverty school might have strong student demand but constant staffing turnover, making long-term credential planning nearly impossible.

Dual enrollment isn’t just a “college readiness” strategy. It’s a local economic mobility strategy. When it’s uneven, mobility becomes uneven.

The hidden cost: dual enrollment depends on unpaid (or underpaid) labor

One detail from Wisconsin is almost too on-the-nose: one teacher reported earning an extra $50 per year for teaching a dual-enrollment course.

That’s not a bonus. That’s a symbolic gesture.

If dual enrollment requires additional training, coordination with college faculty, compliance requirements, and sometimes extra professional development, then the compensation needs to match the workload. Otherwise, the system is effectively saying: “Do more, get credentialed, and we’ll reward you with… more work.”

Most people won’t take that deal. And they shouldn’t.

The reimbursement trap: funding exists, but it’s not usable enough

Wisconsin created a grant program in 2017 to reimburse districts for teacher graduate tuition tied to dual enrollment credentials. The state sets aside $500,000 per year, and the reporting shows hundreds of thousands go unused.

That’s a classic workforce-development failure mode: the money exists, but the design doesn’t match human reality.

Why “reimbursement” often fails for working adults

A reimbursement model sounds reasonable until you map it to teachers’ lives.

Common barriers include:

1. Cash-flow: Teachers or districts must front the cost.
2. Administrative friction: Applications, documentation, and yearly reimbursement cycles create delay.
3. Time scarcity: Completing 18 graduate credits part-time can take years.
4. Unclear payoff: Even after the credits, pay increases may be small or nonexistent.

In the reporting, a single graduate credit can cost over $800, pushing the 18-credit requirement to around $15,000—and that’s before considering books, fees, and time.

Here’s the blunt workforce lesson: “Free” training isn’t free if the worker pays with time, stress, and foregone income.

A better approach: treat teacher upskilling like a workforce pipeline

The fix isn’t simply “lower standards” or “keep standards.” The fix is building an educator pipeline that makes dual enrollment teachable at scale—without burning out the people doing the teaching.

In this “Education, Skills, and Workforce Development” series, we keep coming back to one idea: training pipelines work when training is integrated into the job, compensated, and supported by employers. Teachers deserve the same workforce logic we apply to nurses, manufacturing technicians, and IT apprentices.

Solution 1: Paid, cohort-based credential pathways (with protected time)

If a state wants more dual enrollment, it should fund release time and structured cohorts, not just tuition.

What this can look like:

• District schedules that include one period per day (or per week) reserved for graduate coursework and collaboration
• Cohorts by subject (college algebra, general chemistry, composition) so teachers build content mastery together
• Clear pacing plans that complete 18 credits in a predictable timeframe (for example, 6 credits per semester over 3 semesters)

This is how adult upskilling succeeds in industry: time is budgeted, not begged for.

Solution 2: Stackable micro-credentials that map to the 18-credit requirement

Not every dual-enrollment course needs the same academic profile. An automotive dual-enrollment instructor may need deeper industry certifications; a statistics instructor needs content-heavy graduate study.

A smart compromise is stackable credentials that translate into graduate credit:

• Micro-credentials verified by universities/technical colleges
• Competency-based assessments tied to course outcomes
• A defined “credit crosswalk” so teachers know exactly how micro-credentials convert

This keeps rigor while reducing wasted coursework.

Solution 3: “Grow-your-own” college faculty partnerships

If local colleges are worried about quality, the answer isn’t to block access—it’s to co-own quality.

High-impact partnership models include:

• Co-teaching or mentorship: a college faculty member mentors a high school dual-enrollment teacher for the first year
• Shared syllabus + shared assessment: common rubrics, moderated grading, and periodic calibration
• Faculty-in-residence rotations: college instructors teach on high school campuses part-time, while training teachers to take over

The win is bigger than dual enrollment: this builds regional talent ecosystems, where K–12 and postsecondary institutions behave like one pipeline.

Solution 4: Pay teachers like the scarce workforce they are

If dual enrollment is a strategic priority, compensation has to reflect it.

Practical options districts and states can implement:

• A per-section stipend that’s meaningful (think thousands per course, not token amounts)
• Salary lanes for subject-area graduate credits (not only for admin-oriented master’s degrees)
• Retention bonuses tied to staying in dual-enrollment roles for 3–5 years

This isn’t indulgence. It’s basic labor economics.

Common questions leaders ask (and the real answers)

“Can’t we just lower qualification standards?”

You can, but it’s a blunt instrument. Lowering standards without a quality strategy risks:

• weaker transferability
• inconsistent course rigor across districts
• political backlash that threatens funding

A better question is: What quality signals actually predict student success in college? Credentials are one proxy; performance data and moderated assessments can be another.

“Why don’t teachers use the existing tuition money?”

Because tuition isn’t the only cost. Time and workload are the true limiting factors. Reimbursement doesn’t solve that.

“What’s the workforce payoff of dual enrollment, specifically?”

Dual enrollment accelerates credential completion and lowers cost barriers. In fields like healthcare, IT, advanced manufacturing, and skilled trades, that often means:

• faster entry into certificate programs
• earlier access to paid internships/apprenticeships
• fewer drop-offs caused by tuition shocks in the first year of college

When dual enrollment is aligned to local labor market needs, it becomes a practical skills strategy—not just an academic one.

The real case study lesson: Wisconsin isn’t behind—it’s early

Wisconsin isn’t a cautionary tale because it tried dual enrollment. It’s a cautionary tale because it tried to scale dual enrollment without scaling the educator workforce behind it.

The demand signal is loud: participation is rising, and in 2023–24 high schoolers made up one-third of community college enrollment in Wisconsin. That’s not a pilot. That’s a system shift.

If your district, state agency, college, or workforce board is planning for 2026 and beyond, here’s the stance I’d take: treat dual enrollment teacher preparation as a priority workforce pipeline. Fund it like one. Staff it like one. Measure it like one.

The next step is practical: map which dual-enrollment courses your region needs most (based on student demand and labor market data), identify the credential gaps among current teachers, and build a paid pathway that closes those gaps in 12–24 months—not “whenever someone finds the time.”

Dual enrollment can be the on-ramp to college and careers. But it only works if there’s someone qualified—and supported—behind the wheel.