This chapter provides a national picture of innovative learning options, such as dual enrollment and early college high schools. These options prepare high school students for college-level course work by providing supported early immersion in college. The chapter also discusses how such programs can help a wide range of students and highlights the importance of state policy in encouraging these efforts to create stronger connections among high schools, post- secondary institutions, and the workforce. New Directions for Dual Enrollment: Creating Stronger Pathways from High School Through College Nancy Hoffman, Joel Vargas, Janet Santos There are a number of ways to increase high school graduation rates and put more students on the path to and through college. Most states are try- ing to do so by increasing the academic rigor of all their high schools. A first line of attack is to boost the academic requirements for high school gradu- ation. Fifteen states are instituting a core curriculum that ensures that the default pathway through high school is a college preparatory sequence (American Diploma Project, 2007). Moreover, a substantial number of states are aligning high school grad- uation standards with the standards required to advance directly into non- remedial, college-level work. For example, thirty states are at work on such alignment through Achieve’s American Diploma Project Network (2007), and other states are engaged in aligning standards themselves. Some states use tenth- or eleventh-grade assessments to provide students with informa- tion about their readiness for college. And some states and school districts are mounting programs to recover high school dropouts and students who fall behind in earning credits: these students too need intensive academic work to meet the more rigorous standards required to complete high school and succeed in a community college. An emerging body of research and practice suggests that providing college-level work in high school is one promising way to better prepare a wide range of young people for college success, including those who do 43 4 NEW DIRECTIONS FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES, no. 145, Spring 2009 © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) • DOI: 10.1002/cc.354