When dual enrollment is designed for every student

High school students in a rural dual enrollment program walk together along a campus sidewalk outside a Ray Unified School District building.

For many rural districts, dual enrollment is limited by logistics: staffing, scheduling and minimum enrollment requirements that are hard to meet. Ray Unified School District is demonstrating a different approach.

In Kearny, Arizona, a district of about 400 students is embedding college-level coursework into the high school experience through Arizona State University. Learners are completing college-level online courses in areas like math, history and English, building college credit while still in high school.

What stands out is how access is built.

Through Accelerate ASU, Universal Learner Courses are delivered by ASU faculty and integrated into the school day without requiring GPA thresholds, additional instructors or new infrastructure. The model is structured to reduce academic risk, giving learners the opportunity to engage with college-level work and decide how it carries forward.

This matters in regions like Pinal County, where proximity to higher education does not always translate to participation. Traditional dual enrollment often depends on conditions that exclude smaller or resource-constrained schools. When those constraints are removed, participation can expand beyond a narrow group of students.

Ray Unified is moving toward that outcome with intention and working to make college-level learning part of the standard high school experience.

The story reflects a broader shift across ASU’s Learning Enterprise: designing connected pathways that begin earlier, adapt to context and support progress over time.

For districts navigating similar challenges, the takeaway is practical. When access is built into the model, new options emerge for high schools students and communities.

Read the full story in the Accelerate ASU newsroom: What happens when you remove every barrier: lessons from Ray Unified School District

Explore Accelerate ASU: accelerate.asu.edu