College-ready African American Students’ Participation in High School College Credit Courses

A quantitative study was used to examine the college credit courses taken by college-ready African American high school students during 2017–2021. The study used the eighthgrade preliminary SAT (PSAT) scores as a selection criterion for college-ready African American students and examined the high school college credit courses that this group of students enrolled in during high school. The attainment of a college degree increases overall life satisfaction (Civitci, 2015) and earning potential for an individual (Asoni & Sanandaji, 2016; Fruiht & Chan, 2018). However, students of color matriculate to college at a much lower level than their White peers (Elliott et al., 2018). To support the attainment of college degrees, federal and state legislation provides frameworks to emphasize skills for college and career readiness. Although it is important for all students to be college ready, it is critical for African American students. Bryant (2015) found that many African American students graduate from high school unprepared for more challenging college coursework, even though various methods exist for students to take college credit courses while still enrolled in high school, including dual venrollment and Advanced Placement courses. Each of these types of courses has unique characteristics, such as faculty, curriculum, and requirements for obtaining college credit. Although a correlation exists between college credit courses in high school and college matriculation, African American students continue to be underrepresented in enrollment (Gagnon & Mattingly, 2016). In order to address this issue, a quantitative study was used to examine the college credit courses taken by college-ready African American high school students during 2017–2021. The study utilized the eighth-grade PSAT scores as a selection criterion for college-ready African American students and examined the high school college credit courses that this group of students enrolled in during high school. To analyze the data, multiple analysis methods were used, including descriptive statistics, independent t-test samples, Chi-square analysis, and Chi-square goodness of fit