Which dual enrollment courses were Florida’s public high school students taking this spring?

This spring, 16,824 of Florida’s public high school students were taking the second-semester college “freshman” English class via dual enrollment at the state’s public colleges and universities.

The course, ENC 1102, enrolled about three times as many students as the second most popular dual enrollment course, College Algebra (MAC 1105), which had 5,742 students. US History from 1865 (AMH 2020) was the third most popular dual enrollment course with 5,080 students.

Much smaller numbers of students took courses in calculus, chemistry and physics that satisfy requirements for bachelor’s degree graduation in STEM fields. A total of 1,359 students were enrolled in Calculus 1 (MAC 1311 or 2311), Calculus 2 (MAC 1312 or 2312) or Calculus 3 (MAC 1313 or 2313), which are required in fields like engineering. The two introductory chemistry courses required for STEM majors, General Chemistry 1 (CHM 1045, 2045 or C045) and General Chemistry 2 (CHM 1046, 2046 and C046) were being taken by 1,662 students.

Only 432 students statewide were taking a physics course that satisfies a graduation requirement for a STEM bachelor’s degree. Of those, 135 were taking one of the two algebra-based courses (PHY 1053, 2053, C053, 1054, 2054 or C054) required for students majoring in fields like biology. The other 297 were taking one of the calculus-based courses (PHY 2048, C048, 2049 or C049) required for students majoring in fields like engineering, chemistry and meteorology.

In short, few Florida high school students use the dual enrollment mechanism to get a head start on bachelors’ degrees in STEM fields. Instead, these students more often use Advanced Placement courses to attempt to get that head start. For example, this spring 14,038 students in the state’s public high schools were taking AP Calculus AB, which is equivalent to MAC 1311 or 2311 and which dual enrolled only 712 students this spring. The AP Chemistry class, which is equivalent to CHM 1045 and 1046, was being taken by 5,629 students (compared to 1,662 taking the dual enrollment courses). The AP Physics 1 class, which is equivalent to the first semester algebra-based class PHY 2053, enrolled 5,672 students this spring. The equivalent dual enrollment course had only 103 students registered.

The numbers quoted here are taken from the Florida Department of Education’s spring course enrollment survey.

The top 25 dual enrollment courses for Florida’s public high school students in the Spring of 2021.