National Results
2026 DESSE Respondents
The 2026 DESSE national results represent the aggregate responses of dual enrollment students from participating colleges across the country.
The 2026 national data set includes 58 institutions from 12 states and 16,702 student respondents.
Use the interactive dashboard to explore students’ experiences with dual enrollment, including how they learned about dual enrollment, how they got started, their academic and student support experiences, their engagement with instructors and coursework, their sense of belonging, and their educational and career goals.
Explore the 2026 National Dashboard
The DESSE dashboard includes three views
Executive
The Executive dashboard provides a high-level overview of selected DESSE findings, including students’ overall experiences, plans after high school, outreach and connection experiences, student support experiences, and academic support experiences.
Focus Areas
The Focus Areas dashboard allows users to examine results across 15 areas of the dual enrollment student experience:
Academic Advising and Planning
Academic Challenge
Active and Collaborative Learning
Barriers to Persistence
Career Counseling
Course Taking
Getting Started
Goals
Instructor Expectations
Motivation and Preparedness
Sense of Belonging
Stigma
Student Effort
Student-Faculty Interaction
Support Services
Demographic Comparisons
The Demographic Comparisons dashboard allows users to compare responses for selected groups of students. Available comparison categories include gender, race and ethnicity, first-generation status, eligibility for free or reduced-price meals, early-college high school status, and current grade.
The dashboard’s three views and the 15 focus areas are shown in the sample dashboard.
Use the dashboard controls to:
Move among the Executive, Focus Areas, and Demographic Comparisons views
Select a DESSE focus area
Compare college and national percentages, when applicable
Filter results by available student characteristics
Review the number and percentage of students selecting each response option
See Understanding Survey Results for information about the respondents included in results, weighting, student-level comparison definitions, and other guidance for interpreting DESSE findings.