January 20, 2026
JFF’s IDEAS project scales access to dual enrollment through the Hub model, aligning schools, colleges, and communities so every student graduates with momentum toward college and career.
At Jobs for the Future (JFF), we believe that every young person should graduate high school with momentum, whether that means earning college credits early, entering a career path with real-world skills, or simply knowing there’s a system designed to support their next step.
Dual enrollment, where high school students take college-level courses, makes that momentum possible. And it’s not just a theory: research shows that dual enrollment boosts academic achievement, increases college persistence, and leads to higher credential completion rates. It helps students see and practice what’s possible.
Yet despite its clear benefits, access to dual enrollment remains uneven. Some students have strong support systems and clearly mapped pathways. Others face high costs, limited course offerings, or bureaucratic hurdles that make participation difficult, especially in schools that lack longstanding college partnerships or in communities with fewer resources.
That’s where the Increasing Dual Enrollment Access and Success—or IDEAS—project comes in.
IDEAS is a five-year, $15 million initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Education Innovation and Research program and launched by JFF in 2024. IDEAS is designed to help more students participate in meaningful, credit-bearing college courses during high school.
At the heart of the project is the IDEAS Hub model, a new way for community colleges to organize partnerships across school districts, colleges, and state systems that enable high-quality dual enrollment pathways at scale.
The IDEAS Hub model offers a different way forward. Instead of each high school and college negotiating their own agreements, a hub organizes multiple partners under one shared vision. This model helps build consistency across districts, streamline operations, share resources, and ensure students and families understand what’s available.
Each hub includes several core components:
This structure moves dual enrollment from a patchwork of programs to a shared system, making it easier for colleges and schools to serve more students, more consistently.
The IDEAS project launched with four pioneering community colleges: Pima Community College (Arizona), College of Lake County (Illinois), Amarillo College (Texas), and San Jacinto College (Texas), along with three state-level partners committed to rethinking how dual enrollment can advance access to opportunity at scale: the Center for the Future of Arizona, Education Systems Center at Northern Illinois University, and Educate Texas.
In its first year, these partners identified critical insights that are shaping a new statewide model increasing access to dual enrollment:
Innovation is already happening, and the hub model accelerates it. Colleges are piloting shared staffing structures between the college and treatment districts, expanding advising capacity, designing dual enrollment pathways that incorporate work-based learning, and piloting virtual delivery models that integrate mental health and social-emotional supports.
These insights reflect a broader truth: systems are ready to evolve. When state policy aligns with local leadership, partners can more intentionally focus on expanding dual enrollment opportunities and tailored supports to high-need students.
This year, JFF is thrilled to welcome a new cohort of partners to the IDEAS project. The three new state leads scaling dual enrollment in our second cohort are: Future Plans (Ohio), The Kansas Leadership Center (Kansas), and Tennessee College Access and Success Network (Tennessee), in partnership with Washington State College (Ohio), Nashville State Community College (Tennessee), and WSU Tech (Kansas). These additional hubs will help us test and refine the model in more regions, reaching students with different needs, backgrounds, and aspirations.
Each new partner will join the IDEAS Community of Practice, a national network of college leaders, state officials, and practitioners working together to improve and expand dual enrollment. Through peer learning, technical assistance, and shared action planning, this group is laying the groundwork for a better, more coordinated approach to early college access.
There are promising trends in dual enrollment, with more students participating than ever before. During the 2022–23 academic year, an estimated 2.5 million high school students took at least one college course. In 2024, state legislatures introduced more than 243 dual enrollment–related bills, and 21 states enacted new policies to strengthen or expand these opportunities.
At the same time, community colleges across the country are seeing a rise in enrollment among students under age 18, even as overall enrollment has declined.
But these opportunities are not reaching everyone. Students in rural areas may only have access to a few courses, or none at all. Students from families with low incomes are often asked to cover unexpected fees or textbook costs. And first-generation students are less likely to enroll in dual credit programs, often because of gaps in outreach, advising, or course alignment.
The path from high school to a career should not depend on a student’s ZIP code, income level, or access to specific programs. Yet too often, those factors determine whether a student is able to take advantage of opportunities like dual enrollment.
The IDEAS project offers a way to change that.
At JFF, we know that dual enrollment, when designed thoughtfully and implemented well, can be a game-changer. With IDEAS, we’re learning what it takes to expand that opportunity to all students, not just a lucky few.
We invite you to:
Visit the IDEAS project landing page to learn more and access resources
Sign up for updates to follow our progress and hear stories from partners in the field
Explore how the IDEAS Hub model could be adapted in your community or state
Together, we can reimagine how dual enrollment works—so that every student has the opportunity to graduate with purpose, confidence, and a head start on their future.
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