Racial/Ethnic Differences in Accelerated Credit and Inequalities in College Completion

Abstract

According to the theory of effectively maintained inequality, families advantaged by income or race/ethnicity attend colleges and complete their degrees at higher rates due to both quantitative and qualitative distinctiveness from other families. This study extends this line of research by investigating whether the distribution and payoffs of accelerated credits from Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and dual enrollment programs likewise follow a pattern of perpetuating racial/ethnic gaps in college completion. We hypothesize that racial inequality in college outcomes will be maintained by the concentration of minority students in lesser-rewarding types of accelerated credit and by racial differences in the payoff of specific types of accelerated credit. Using institutional data from a large public four-year university in Florida, we find notable racial/ethnic differences in amount and type of accelerated credit. Event history analyses suggest that these differences account for a relatively small portion of the Black/White difference in college completion. Overall, the results provide little support for theories of maintained inequality, and we conclude accelerated credit programs do not meaningfully contribute to the racial stratification of higher education among college matriculants.

Keywords

accelerated credit Advanced Placement college completion dual enrollment International Baccalaureate racial/ethnic inequality

Introduction

Getting a college degree in the United States has become more important for securing stable, well-compensated employment, and at the same time gaining admission to more selective public and private institutions has become increasingly competitive. High school students seeking to earn a degree from more selective institutions thus face significant pressure to better prepare themselves for college. Increasingly, one major form of such preparation is to enroll in more rigorous and academically challenging courses that positively influence college outcomes (Adelman 2006; Long, Conger, and Iatarola 2012; Long, Iatarola, and Conger 2009). Unique among these are courses that offer students opportunities to earn “accelerated” college credits in high school, potentially lowering the cost of college and also signaling academic readiness to colleges and universities. For the majority of students obtaining accelerated credit in high school, they do so by completing Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), and dual enrollment (DE) courses.¹

The good news/bad news from a sociological perspective on accelerated credit is that students benefit from the more rigorous curriculum but access to those courses is stratified by race, gender, and economic background. Participating in accelerated credit programs like AP, IB, and DE significantly improves the odds of both college admission and degree completion, even controlling for academic ability (An 2013; Chajewski, Mattern, and Shaw 2011; McCauley 2007; Smith, Hurwitz, and Avery 2017). Despite national and state-level efforts to expand access to these programs, inequalities in the utilization and payoff of accelerated credit persist along racial and socioeconomic lines. In Florida, for example, students who participate in any of these three programs are more likely to be White, female, and come from more affluent backgrounds (Hengtgen and Morales 2022; Liu et al. 2020; May et al. 2015). Further, among those who take AP classes, Black and Hispanic students are awarded significantly fewer credits than White students (Theokas and Saaris 2013). Taken together, this points to the possibility that accelerated credit programs contribute to racial/ethnic inequalities in college enrollment and completion, especially at more selective public and private four-year institutions.

The existing literature has established how accelerated credit is racially stratified in the United States, but several areas of inquiry remain under-developed. Firstly, more research is needed on how the acquisition of accelerated credit affects student progress after enrolling in college. While it seems obvious that obtaining college credits prior to enrolling should increase the odds and pace of degree completion, variations in content or quality may undercut any benefits beyond increasing the chances of admission. There is also little research on whether some types of accelerated credit are more beneficial than others. The bulk of the existing literature focuses on one form of accelerated credit at a time (AP, IB, or DE), with few studies comparing effect sizes of the three programs against each other (AP vs. IB vs. DE). Yet, these programs differ considerably in requirements for access, in capacity, and standardization and rigor. Building on these two issues and the well-documented race differences in access to accelerated credit in high school, we argue that more work is especially needed on whether accelerated credit contributes to the persistence of racial inequalities in college completion. Drawing on the effectively maintained inequality (EMI) perspective, we hypothesize that variations in type and payoff will sustain racial differences in the timing and odds of degree completion.

To assess the implications of accelerated credit for racial/ethnic differences in college completion, we differentiate between types of accelerated credit and use discrete-time event history analysis to assess their association with college completion over each academic term of potential enrollment. Exploring these patterns over seven consecutive cohorts of first-time-in-college (FTIC) public university students, we find little support for theories of maintained inequality. These findings reveal limits of the EMI framework for predicting racial variations in college outcomes at a moderately selective four-year university.

Literature Review

Competition for higher education in the United States has intensified with significant increases in enrollment, selectivity, and cost of attendance (de Brey et al. 2021; Florida College Access Network 2013; Skomsvold 2014). Nationally, postsecondary enrollments increased by 1.9 million students between 2007 and 2013, reaching a record enrollment of 18 million students in the Fall 2010 semester before decreasing to 17.5 million students by Fall 2013 (de Brey et al. 2021). At the same time as this boom in postsecondary enrollment, institutional selectivity increased. The average college acceptance rates across all institutions declined from 67% in Fall 2007 to 64.7% in Fall 2013, while highly selective institutions (such as Ivy League schools) nearly halved their acceptance rates (Clinedinst, Koranteng, and Nicola 2015; Hawkins and Clinedinst 2007). Further, the total cost of attendance at postsecondary institutions—including tuition, fees, room, and board—increased across the board (both public and private; 2-year and 4-year institutions) between 2007 and 2013, from an average of $19,413 to $22,630 (de Brey et al. 2021). Reflecting these national trends, the average cost of tuition and fees almost doubled at the institution in our sample and during the period covered in this study. The rapidly increasing enrollment, selectivity, and cost of attendance around this time led to heightened competition for access to more desirable institutions. In addition, given the growing significance of postsecondary education for employment (Blumenstyk 2020), there are bigger social consequences of racial/ethnic disparities in high school programs like accelerated credit that shape college success.

It is not difficult to see the appeal of accelerated credit during this time of increased competition and cost of attendance. High school acceleration programs offer ways for students to produce a more competitive college application (e.g., through higher weighted GPAs and college-readiness signaling) and, once admitted, to potentially shorten the time to graduation. As with any educational resource, accelerated credit programs have the potential to either reduce, maintain, or expand pre-existing educational inequalities affecting underrepresented populations, such as low-income, first-generation, or non-White students (Alon 2009, 2010). This paper seeks to ascertain whether the accumulation of accelerated credit in high school serves to maintain racial inequality in higher education using the EMI theoretical framework to guide our investigation.

Effectively Maintained Inequality

The theory of EMI contends that “socioeconomically advantaged actors secure for themselves and their children some degree of advantage wherever advantages are commonly possible” (Lucas 2001:1652). The EMI framework identifies two broad types of advantage: quantitative and qualitative. Once a certain level of quantitative advantage (e.g., years of schooling/highest degree obtained) becomes normalized across a majority of the population, socioeconomically advantaged students and families turn to qualitative advantage to maintain their competitive edge. Sources of qualitative advantage include access to college preparatory curricular tracks, participation in community service or extra-curricular clubs, engagement in internships and other career-prep activities, and utilization of college entrance exam preparation services (Alon 2010; Buchmann et al. 2010; Lucas 2001; Wells et al. 2016).

For high school students seeking the best college outcomes, inequality-maintaining advantage has increasingly taken the form of high school acceleration programs. These programs offer college-level curricula through which students can demonstrate they are “college-ready,” accumulate college credits for little to no cost, and, in most states, boost their high school GPA through the greater weight placed on these courses. In U.S. secondary schools, three major programs that provide opportunities for high school students to engage in college-level courses are AP, IB, and DE. Each program exposes students to college-level curricula and affords the opportunity to earn college credit, either for passing the course (as is the case in DE) or for passing a standardized end-of-course exam (AP and IB). According to EMI, students from advantaged families will use accelerated credit programs to enhance their access to more selective colleges and universities through both quantitative and qualitative means. On the one hand, the sheer number of accelerated credits can translate into postsecondary advantages, from signaling an extended period of successfully engaging in college-level coursework (in our sample, accelerated credits range from 0 to 137 college credit hours) and from having a significant head start toward degree completion upon matriculation. As access to accelerated credit increases and becomes more common, EMI predicts that advantaged students will attempt to distinguish themselves qualitatively as well—such as by hoarding access to the types of accelerated credit that are perceived to have the most quality or prestige.

EMI and Racial/Ethnic Disparities

EMI points to general processes whereby families seek quantitative and qualitative advantage, especially when there is heightened competition for desired educational slots. As the majority of existing literature on EMI focuses on socioeconomic disparities, there is room to develop a more nuanced formulation of this framework by attempting to apply it to the case of racial/ethnic inequalities in college completion.

Numerous scholars have pointed to advanced curricula, including accelerated credit programs, as likely sites where White students have attempted to maintain their racial/ethnic advantage in college outcomes (Clotfelter et al. 2021; Diamond and Lewis 2022; Kelly and Price 2011; Lewis and Diamond 2015; Price 2021). Historically, the racial segregation of secondary schools served to skew opportunities to pursue advanced curricula away from Black and Hispanic students (Darling-Hammond 1998). Yet, even when there is less racial segregation between schools, segregation of students across the courses within schools persists, and White students are disproportionately enrolled in advanced classes compared to their Black and Hispanic peers (Clotfelter et al. 2021; Francis and Darity 2021; O’Connor et al. 2011). Concerning AP and IB programs specifically, Black and Hispanic students are half as less likely as White or Asian students to take AP and IB courses, and they have significantly lower exam pass rates (Price 2021; Siegel-Hawley et al. 2021).

Racial/ethnic differences in accelerated credit persist in part because White, middle class parents are more able to secure spots for their children in advanced educational tracks while also working to undermine reforms aimed at equalizing access to advanced educational tracks (Lewis, Diamond, and Forman 2015; Wells and Oakes 1996). Overall, White high school students have maintained a racial advantage, vis-à-vis Black students, in their access to accelerated credit programs like AP. Studies of both districts and high schools find that a higher number of AP offerings is associated with larger Black-White gaps in AP participation (Anderson et al. 2021; Rodriguez and McGuire 2019). In their case study of a midwestern U.S. high school, Lewis et al. (2015) found that White parents used their symbolic capital and class privilege to maintain advantages for their children by more effectively advocating for their access to advanced educational tracks. Perhaps as a result, adopted tracking reforms often do not effectively narrow racial/ethnic disparities in advanced course-taking (Klugman 2013). These studies are indicative of how accelerated credit programs can be a stratified marker of distinction through which racial and ethnic inequalities in education are effectively maintained.

High School Acceleration Programs (AP, IB, DE)

Growing numbers of high school students participate in accelerated credit programs and earn an increasing amount of college credit while still in high school. According to recent figures, more than 2.8 million students across the country—nearly one-fifth of all enrolled high school students—enrolled in AP courses in the 2018-19 school year and The College Board administered 5.1 million AP exams (College Board 2018; National Center for Education Statistics 2020). A key concern of our study is that the growth in accelerated credit programs has been uneven, such as when California’s wealthier public schools actively fought to maintain their competitive edge in AP offerings compared to lower-resourced schools, what one reporter described as an “AP arms race” (Davenport 2006).

Part of what is fueling the increasing demand for accelerated credit programs are their payoffs to college admission and subsequent performance in college classes. The boost to getting admitted to a four-year institution is considerable. Among students in the high school class of 2007, those who took at least one AP exam had 171% higher odds of attending a four-year college than those who took none, an advantage that is significant net of academic ability or high school characteristics (Chajewski, Mattern, and Shaw 2011). College admissions officers also view IB program participation favorably when considering applicants (Breland et al. 2002). Beyond admissions, earning accelerated credits through AP, for example, is associated with better performance in college coursework (Sadler and Sonnert, 2010).

Participating in accelerated credit programs is also beneficial for degree completion (Tai et al. 2010). Respondents to the National Education Longitudinal Study who took AP and DE courses in high school were significantly more likely than their peers to graduate with a bachelor’s degree within six years (McCauley 2007). Earning college credit through AP is also significantly related to double majoring, taking more advanced college coursework, and a reduced time-to-degree (TTD) (Evans 2019). Finally, these accelerated credit programs allow students to earn college credits without incurring tuition costs, increasing the affordability of a postsecondary degree.

Despite the considerable growth in the number of students participating in accelerated credit programs, these programs are more prevalent in schools with greater resources and more socioeconomically advantaged students (Klugman 2013). Both AP and IB programs were originally conceived as small, exclusive programs to provide higher-achieving students with a standardized college-level curriculum in high school (Nugent and Karnes 2002). The 1990s brought on a wave of calls for expanding access to accelerated credit programs, followed by state and federal efforts to increase college-level course offerings for high school students (Klopfenstein 2004; Ross 1993). One important development in the effort to broaden access to accelerated credit classes is the expansion of dual enrollment programs. In Florida, for example, access to DE is written into state legislation for students who meet eligibility criteria (Fla. Stat. § 1007.271 2021). Although some states (Iowa and Minnesota, for example) have had success with their expansion efforts (Zinth 2015), the expansion of accelerated credit has more often resulted in greater opportunities for predominantly White, wealthier, non-rural schools and not those serving underrepresented populations (Klopfenstein 2004; Klugman 2013).

Today, Black and Hispanic students still lag behind their White and Asian peers in terms of their participation in accelerated credit programs and the number of college credits earned through them. Black students have low participation rates in AP (half the national average) and IB (one-third to one-half that of White students) programs, while Asian students’ AP participation was more than double the national average (Theokas and Saaris 2013). Black and Hispanic students also have lower rates of AP exam participation and lower exam pass rates. In the midst of the nationwide AP expansion effort, White students enjoyed stable AP exam pass rates (around 65% between 1997 and 2012), while the pass rate for Black and Hispanic students dropped (Judson and Hobson 2015). What is less well understood is how much the racial/ethnic stratification of accelerated credit contributes to corresponding disparities in the odds and timing of college completion.

Intended Contribution and Hypotheses

While the existing literature clearly documents racial and socioeconomic inequality in access to accelerated credit programs, there are several areas warranting further investigation. First, more research is needed to understand the role of accelerated credit programs in students’ progression toward degree completion after college enrollment. The existing literature on accelerated credit programs like AP, IB, and DE primarily focuses on their payoff in postsecondary admissions. Our study extends other recent assessments of the efficacy of accelerated credit for college outcomes (An and Taylor 2019; Kolluri 2018; Sadler et al. 2010) by focusing on the implications of the levels and payoffs of different types of accelerated credit for racial/ethnic differences in college completion. Our work is also partly unique because it is attentive to whether some types of accelerated credit are more beneficial than others. Differences in program accessibility, capacity, standardization, and rigor may contribute to different effect sizes for one program over another. DE programs, in particular, vary across districts in their administration and rigor (Piontek et al. 2016). If these program differences translate into different levels of college readiness, then the uneven distribution of students across them could be consequential for social disparities in college outcomes.

In short, our paper extends past work by using the EMI theoretical perspective to ask if variations in accelerated credit among matriculants at a moderately selective institution serve as a mechanism of maintained racial inequality at that institution. In one sense, accelerated credit is one way to make a qualitative distinction among college-bound students as Lucas (2001) originally viewed high school college-prep tracks (p. 1648), but we argue accelerated credit presents both quantitative and qualitative opportunities for competitive advantage. On the one hand, some students entering college possess quantitatively more accelerated credit and are benefited by a head start on their degree requirements and their greater preparedness for the demands of college coursework. On the other hand, not all types of accelerated credit are necessarily equal, and we hypothesize that credits derived from AP and IB programs will be more beneficial due to those programs’ greater standardization and rigor. Fundamentally, we ask if quantitative differences in hours of credit or qualitative differences in the payoff of the different types of accelerated credit contribute to the maintenance of racial differences in college completion (admittedly those differences are small at the institution we study).

We draw upon the EMI framework to generate hypotheses about the implications of accelerated credit programs for racial inequality in higher education. Experts in this area would note that our analyses do not constitute a formal test of EMI; several elements of our study design, available data, and modeling strategy do not meet the requirements to do so (Lucas and Byrne 2017). Further, we are not testing whether advantaged students shifted to more accelerated credits accelerated credits or types of credits that have the largest collegiate in response to growing academic competition in a way that led to a stability of class or race differentials in college completion (cf. Alon 2009). Rather, we are (1) witnessing a notable rise in accelerated credit at a single institution in a short period when college became more competitive and (2) assessing whether differences in quantity and quality (type) of accelerated credit are consequential for racial/ethnic gaps in college completion.

Our study assesses three hypotheses: (1) Increased levels of accelerated credit across the seven cohorts are greater for White students than Black and Hispanic students, particularly in courses that are most predictive of to college completion. This is consistent with the assumption of EMI that advantaged groups will seek to maintain a quantitative advantage where possible relative to under-represented minority groups. (2) Unequal levels of the various types of accelerated credit explain racial disparities in college completion. Our second hypothesis is based on the past findings that accelerated credit is beneficial and therefore racial disparities within them matter for maintaining racial inequalities in college completion. Further, past literature indicates that school-level racial and socioeconomic differences contribute to disparities in the quality of instruction, meaning that White and non-White students who achieve the same quantity of advanced credit may still experience differences in the quality of these courses (Hallett and Venegas 2011). Thus, we expect to find that (3) accelerated course credits have a larger positive association with college completion for White students than Black or Hispanic students, due to race-related differences in the quality or content of their earned accelerated credit. Hypothesis 3 tests the EMI assumption that advantaged groups will maintain higher rates of college completion through qualitative means as well as quantitative; in this case, by outpacing under-represented minority groups in the types of accelerated credits (AP and IB) that are likely to have the greatest impact on college success. Note that Asian students are included in the analyses but not our hypotheses; as other studies have found, Asian students participate at high rates in accelerated credit programs and have high rates of admission and completion at four-year institutions.

Data and Methods

Sample

Our study utilized a longitudinal, institutional dataset spanning seven cohorts of students received from the Office of Institutional Research at a large, predominantly White, public Research I university in Florida. To be included in the sample, students must have graduated from a public high school in the state of Florida and matriculated at the institution as a FTIC student between summer 2007 and fall 2013. These years were selected to capture shifts in accelerated credit attainment that followed a significant expansion of Florida’s DE offerings that occurred in 2009. The time span coverage also allowed us to determine degree completion for all students in the dataset for at least six years after matriculation. The data were received in the spring 2021 semester and included data as recent as the fall 2020 semester. After excluding students for whom race could not be ascertained or who were missing data on other key measures (see below), the resulting sample size was 21,494 students. Of the students in the sample, 73% of students identified as White or Caucasian, 16% as Hispanic or Latinx, 8% as Black or African American, and 3% as Asian or Asian American.

Accelerated Credit Participation in Florida

In Florida, the number of students taking AP exams nearly doubled between the 2007–08 and 2017–18 academic years, from just over 53,800 students to just under 92,000 (College Board 2018). This number of AP exams taken and passed by Florida graduates in 2018 equated to just over 629,000 college credits and saved students over $133 million in tuition costs (Florida Department of Education Press Office 2019). Like AP, participation in DE in Florida increased between the 2011–12 and 2016–17 school years to 64,000 students (Florida Department of Education n.d). IB has the lowest participation of the three accelerated credit programs, with just over 61,000 IB course enrollments in Florida for the 2021–22 school year (Florida Department of Education 2022).

Measures

Our primary dependent variable was bachelor’s degree completion. This variable was modeled as a binary indicator marked by earning a bachelor’s degree at any point after matriculation. Our analytic approach, discrete-time event history analysis, entails capturing degree completion in terms of the semester in which it was completed, among the semesters enrolled. That is, the outcome variable of interest was missing for each term prior to students’ enrollment, equal to zero for each semester that students enrolled prior to graduation, and equal to one for the semester of graduation. If students enrolled in subsequent semesters after graduating, those terms were missing. This approach accounts for variations in the expediency of degree completion and also addresses issues of censoring. The ability to distinguish among early, on-time, late, or no graduation is essential because a key benefit of accelerated credit among those who matriculate is having a faster time-to-degree. The issue of censoring is relevant because the later cohorts of the seven we examine have fewer total semesters in which to finish their degrees. However, the vast majority of students who will complete their bachelor’s degrees at this institution will have done so by the end of the shortest cohort timeframe, for example, six calendar years (National Center for Education Statistics 2021). Summary statistics for all study measures prior to reformatting as event history data are presented in Table 1. As noted earlier, racial/ethnic differences in graduation rates are not large at this institution. For the first cohort, the six-year graduation rate was 74% for Black students, 76% for Hispanic students, and 78% for White students. Graduation rates increased over time, and by the 2013 cohort they were 80%, 84%, and 83% for Black, Hispanic, and White students, respectively.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics for Study Measures (N = 21,494).

	Mean	Standard Deviation	Minimum	Maximum
Race/ethnicity (vs White)
Asian	0.03	0.18	0	1
Black	0.08	0.27	0	1
Hispanic	0.16	0.37	0	1
White	0.73	0.44	0	1
Cohort
2007	0.14	0.35	0	1
2008	0.13	0.34	0	1
2009	0.15	0.36	0	1
2010	0.15	0.36	0	1
2011	0.14	0.35	0	1
2012	0.13	0.34	0	1
2013	0.15	0.36	0	1
Hours of credit	17.41	16.54	0	137
Type of credit
APhours	7.69	9.47	0	88
DEhours	7.79	12.94	0	111
IBhours	2.41	8.00	0	48
APhours_Asian	0.25	2.20	0	48
APhours_Black	0.31	2.17	0	44
APhours_Hispanic	1.35	4.95	0	88
APhours_White	5.77	8.91	0	74
DEhours_Asian	0.24	2.75	0	107
DEhours_Black	0.57	4.27	0	85
DEhours_Hispanic	1.23	5.85	0	103
DEhours_White	5.74	11.54	0	111
IBhours_Asian	0.19	2.33	0	43
IBhours_Black	0.15	2.03	0	42
IBhours_Hispanic	0.44	3.50	0	43
IBhours_White	1.64	6.72	0	48
Degree	0.79	0.41	0	1
Controls
High school GPA	3.80	0.39	2.1	4.9
Standardized test	0.05	0.92	−8.07	3.38
Female	0.59	0.49	0	1
Qualified for FRPL in HS	0.10	0.30	0	1
Qualified for Pell Grant	0.36	0.48	0	1
First-generation student	0.20	0.40	0	1

Accelerated credit was assessed in terms of both the amount and types of accelerated credit students had at matriculation. Amount is equal to the total credit hours in accelerated credit and is included in analyses as a continuous variable ranging from 0 to 137 hours of accelerated credit. Those hours may have come from AP, IB, and/or DE programs, with AP being the most common among students, followed by DE then IB.

When considering the relevance of accelerated credit for racial/ethnic differences in degree completion, we also account for various academic and family background factors. A robust set of controls is necessary to at least partly account for the sorting of students into competitive universities such as the one studied here. Chief among these controls is academic ability as captured by high school GPA and standardized test scores, which together have strong associations with admissions and degree completion (Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson 2009). Conceptually, it is challenging to disentangle the causal effect on degree completion of entering college with more accelerated credit. An unknown portion of the academic ability measured by high school GPA and SAT/ACT scores, and associated with subsequent college success, is due to skills and capacities gained through engaging with college-level curricula via accelerated credit. As a consequence of this collider bias, controlling for academic ability can lead to an under-estimate of the extent to which accelerated credit among matriculants is beneficial to the timeliness of their degree completion (Elwert and Winship 2014). Below, we describe how we explored whether including high school GPA and standardized test scores in our models led to an over- or under-estimation of the benefit of accelerated credit among first-year college students.

Our full set of control variables include cohort (2007–2013), weighted high school GPA, standardized test score, free- or reduced-price lunch eligibility, Pell Grant eligibility, first-generation status, and gender. Standardized test score is equal to the highest standardized “superscore” received on either the ACT or SAT.²

First-generation status was determined based on mother’s and father’s education as reported on the students’ Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Students who reported that both parents completed middle school/junior high or high school only were coded as first-generation students. Students who indicated that at least one parent completed college or beyond were not considered first-generation college students. Free- or reduced-price lunch eligibility in high school and Pell Grant eligibility are also from the FAFSA.

Missing Data

The original sample generated by the Office of Institutional Research included 24,274 students. Students were dropped from the analytic sample if they were missing information on parental education or if they identified as a race/ethnicity other than Asian or Asian American, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latinx, and White or Caucasian. The racial/ethnic categories that were not included had less than 400 students each. After these exclusions, the final analytic sample included 21,494 students with no missing information. When transformed into an event history format of person-semester observations, the data set consisted of 240,756 observations.

Analytic Strategy

We begin by assessing trends in the amount and type of accelerated credit by racial/ethnic group, the results of which inform Hypothesis 1. Next, we use discrete-time event history models to estimate racial/ethnic variations in the odds of graduating with a bachelor’s degree before accounting for type and amount of accelerated credit, controlling for high school GPA, standardized test score, gender, free- or reduced-price lunch eligibility, Pell Grant eligibility, and first-generation status. Event history models estimate the associations between accelerated credit and the probability of graduating in a given semester, contingent on having been enrolled up to that semester; that is, how accelerated credit is associated with when an event happens as compared to simply whether that event happens (Bahr, 2009; Willett and Singer, 1991). The multivariate analyses first test for an overall benefit of accelerated credit hours. Then we include separate measures of AP hours, DE hours, and IB hours to test whether expansions in access to accelerated credit have been accomplished by offering less beneficial forms of accelerated credit. These results are used to assess Hypothesis 2. Finally, we interact accelerated credit with race/ethnicity, to test whether racial/ethnic differences in the benefits of distinct types of accelerated credit directly reinforce racial inequality in degree completion. These final analyses inform Hypothesis 3.

Results

Amount of Accelerated Credit

Table 2 reports the percent of students with no accelerated credit—a quickly diminishing group at the university—and also the average amounts of total accelerated credit across the seven cohorts, broken down by four major racial/ethnic groups. The far-right column in Table 2 reports the change in the percent (top part of table) and the percent change (bottom part of table) from the first to last cohort. The growing prominence of accelerated credit is clearly seen in the large drop in the percent of students entering with no credits. For example, nearly half of the Black students who matriculated in 2007 had no accelerated credit, and the percentage was lower by almost half for the 2013 cohort. It is striking that among Asian, Hispanic, and White students in the most recent cohort who entered college in 2013, it is quite rare (< 10%) for students to have no accelerated credit upon matriculation. In terms of the overall amount of accelerated credit, the average number of accelerated credits went up for every racial/ethnic group across cohorts. Black students matriculated with the fewest credit hours, on average, but also showed the largest percent increase in average number of credits from 2007 to 2013. In every incoming class, Asian students matriculated with the highest average amount of accelerated credit. Hispanic and White students had similar levels of accelerated credit in most years at this institution. During the focal period of our study, the most prevalent ethnicities among Hispanic high school students in Florida are Cuban (23%), Puerto Rican (23%), Mexican (15%), and Columbian (8%). This contrasts significantly with southwestern border states like Arizona, California, and Texas where Hispanic high school students are overwhelmingly of Mexican origin (86–92%) and also northeastern states like Massachusetts and New York where Puerto Ricans make up the largest group of Hispanic high school students (35% and 46%, respectively) (Ruggles et al. 2023). The unique racial experiences of Hispanic students in Florida may contribute to the differences we observe in outcomes.

Table 2.

Overall Trends in Accelerated Credit.

Percent with no accelerated credit	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2007–2013
Asian	16.9%	10.3%	14.3%	15.5%	15.0%	8.8%	4.9%	−12.0
Black	50.9%	40.9%	42.9%	28.3%	28.9%	23.0%	27.4%	−23.5
Hispanic	27.9%	21.8%	20.9%	16.0%	12.6%	11.0%	7.3%	−20.6
White	25.3%	19.9%	16.6%	14.2%	10.3%	8.6%	8.5%	−16.8
Average hours of accelerated credit	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2007–2013
Asian	14.4	19.7	18.2	19.2	22.4	24.1	28.5	+97.9%
Black	7.2	9.8	10.3	14.1	14.1	17.6	17.8	+147.2%
Hispanic	12.9	16.1	16.1	17.9	20.5	21.2	24.7	+91.5%
White	12.9	14.7	15.5	17.2	19.6	20.9	22.1	+71.3%

Type of Accelerated Credit

Underneath the general upward trends in the percent of students with any accelerated credit and the average amount of credit are racial/ethnic variations in the type of credits. Table 3 presents the race-specific trends in the average number of AP credits, DE credits, and IB credits. Asian students stand out in terms of entering college with more credits from IB programs than any other group, an advantage that grew over the seven cohorts. Asian students also substantially increased the credits they earned from DE. Black students are distinct in their greater levels of DE credits compared to AP and IB. DE accounts for proportionately more of Black students’ accelerated credit than any racial/ethnic group; in each year, DE credits accounted for more than half of the total credits Black students entered college with. Hispanic and White students have similar breakdowns of types of accelerated credit, with mostly uniform levels and increases of accelerated credit from AP and DE programs. Looking across the four groups, average levels of DE credits are quite similar; groups vary much more in terms of how much these DE credits contribute to the total, on average.

Table 3.

Trends in Types of Accelerated Credit.

		2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
Asian	AP	6.05	9.20	6.12	6.65	8.71	9.52	9.14
	DE	4.58	6.68	7.43	5.68	7.80	9.12	11.84
	IB	3.70	4.40	4.62	7.20	5.99	7.42	8.77
Black	AP	2.53	2.70	3.28	4.60	4.71	5.13	5.83
	DE	4.07	5.12	6.18	8.57	8.07	10.94	9.67
	IB	1.03	1.80	1.51	1.82	2.01	2.47	3.49
Hispanic	AP	5.68	6.79	7.18	8.41	10.34	9.44	11.02
	DE	5.05	6.06	6.39	7.53	7.49	9.15	11.45
	IB	1.89	2.99	2.90	2.44	2.95	2.98	3.05
White	AP	5.59	6.81	7.38	7.68	8.67	9.37	9.82
	DE	5.81	5.96	6.67	7.69	8.90	10.07	10.00
	IB	1.92	2.36	1.88	2.30	2.61	1.94	2.67

Understanding the implications of these racial/ethnic variations is dependent on determining how consequential the amount and type of accelerated credit is for college completion. Next, we consider how much accelerated credit matters for students who matriculated, above and beyond the significant influence of students’ pre-collegiate academic abilities.

Race, Accelerated Credit, and College Completion

Discrete-time event history models are well suited to examine the influence of accelerated credits on college completion. They are especially effective at capturing how academic resources like accelerated credit influence both the odds of finishing and the time it takes to complete the bachelor’s degree (TTD). Figure 1 presents TTD curves (more specifically, Kaplan–Meier failure curves) by race/ethnicity. The units of time are semesters, and the four curves are averaged across the seven cohorts. The differences in the probability of degree completion are small but in the predicted direction—Asian students graduate sooner and Black students later than White and Hispanic students. At this institution, race differences in the timing of graduation are larger than differences in the odds of ever completing, as indicated by the convergence of graduation curves by the end of the study period.

Figure 1.

Kaplan–Meier estimates of the graduation rate across cohorts and semesters by race/ethnicity.

The discrete-time event history analyses test whether accelerated credit increases the odds of graduating and contributes to racial/ethnic differences in the timing of graduation, whether it varies by type of accelerated credit, and whether specific types of credit yield different benefits depending on student race/ethnicity. The results presented in Table 4 are from six successive regression models. Model 1 includes race/ethnicity with White students as the reference group, cohort, term, and controls. After adjusting for academic ability and economic status, Black students have lower odds of graduating than White students, Hispanic student have greater odds, and Asian students’ odds are no different than Whites’. Model 2 adds the number of accelerated credits without differentiating among types of credit, and shows that the amount of accelerated credit is positively associated with college completion.

Table 4.

Discrete-Time Event History Models for Graduation. Odds Ratios with t-Statistics in Parentheses.

	[1]	[2]	[3]	[4]	[5]	[6]
Race/ethnicity (vs White)
Asian	1.085 (1.7)	1.053 (1)	1.053 (1)	1.027 (0.4)	1.031 (0.5)	1.116* (2)
Black	0.871*** (−3.7)	0.852*** (−4.3)	0.851*** (−4.3)	0.807*** (−4.9)	0.842*** (−4.1)	0.847*** (−4.3)
Hispanic	1.086** (3.3)	1.055* (2.1)	1.050 (1.9)	1.126*** (3.5)	1.045 (1.5)	1.064* (2.3)
Cohort	0.363*** (−120.4)	0.359*** (−120.7)	0.359*** (−120.6)	0.358*** (−120.7)	0.359*** (−120.6)	0.359*** (−120.6)
Term	769.113*** (128.8)	794.688*** (128.9)	794.747*** (128.9)	798.98*** (128.9)	794.935*** (128.9)	796.456*** (128.9)
Accelerated credit
Hours of credit		1.008*** (13.3)
Type of credit (vs none)
APhours			1.010*** (8.9)	1.011*** (8.8)	1.010*** (8.9)	1.010*** (8.9)
DEhours			1.007*** (10.1)	1.007*** (10.2)	1.007*** (8.2)	1.007*** (10.1)
IBhours			1.008*** (7.1)	1.008*** (7.1)	1.008*** (7)	1.009*** (7.1)
APhours_Asian				1.003 (0.6)
APhours_Black				1.012* (2.5)
APhours_Hispanic				0.992** (−3.2)
DEhours_Asian					1.003 (0.8)
DEhours_Black					1.001 (0.5)
DEhours_Hispanic					1.001 (0.3)
IBhours_Asian						0.989* (−2.4)
IBhours_Black						1.002 (0.4)
IBhours_Hispanic						0.995 (−1.7)
Controls
High school GPA	1.941*** (25.1)	1.791*** (21.5)	1.781*** (21.2)	1.775*** (21)	1.781*** (21.2)	1.781*** (21.2)
Standardized test	0.950*** (−4.8)	0.912*** (−8.3)	0.905*** (−8.5)	0.903*** (−8.7)	0.905*** (−8.5)	0.904*** (−8.6)
Male	0.721*** (−17.3)	0.720*** (−17.4)	0.719*** (−17.4)	0.719*** (−17.4)	0.720*** (−17.4)	0.719*** (−17.4)
Qualified for FRPL in HS	1.075* (2.0)	1.075* (2.0)	1.074* (2.0)	1.077* (2.1)	1.075* (2.0)	1.075* (2.0)
Qualified for Pell Grant	0.697*** (−17.1)	0.692*** (−17.4)	0.693*** (−17.3)	0.694*** (−17.3)	0.693*** (−17.3)	0.692*** (−17.4)
First-generation student	1.097*** (3.8)	1.091*** (3.6)	1.093*** (3.6)	1.093*** (3.6)	1.093*** (3.6)	1.092*** (3.6)
Constant	0.000*** (−115.2)	0.000*** (−114.3)	0.000*** (−114)	0.000*** (−114)	0.000*** (−114)	0.000*** (−114.1)
N	240,756	240,756	240,756	240,756	240,756	240,756
Pseudo R²	0.25	0.251	0.251	0.251	0.251	0.251

* - p<.05; ** - p<.01; *** - p<.001.

If all sources of accelerated credit benefited students equally, there would be little reason to be concerned over one group monopolizing a particular type of credit. Model 3 assesses whether type of credit matters, and the results are pertinent to Hypothesis 1 and 2 that reference qualitative differences among accelerated credit options. An additional AP-based college credit is associated with a 1% increase in the odds of graduating at time t, given enrollment up to time t, while an additional credit from DE increases the odds by 0.7%. A Wald test of the difference in the logit slopes for AP versus DE credits confirmed that DE credits yield a significantly smaller positive association.

The rest of the results in Table 4 test for racial/ethnic differences in the payoffs of the three types of accelerated credit (Hypothesis 3). Specifically, Model 4 estimates race-specific influences of AP credits, Model 5 considers DE credits, and, lastly, Model 6 assesses IB credits. AP credits had a smaller, positive association with graduation for Hispanic students than for White students. Contrary to expectations, Black students’ odds of graduating were more positively associated with AP credits than were AP credits for White students. We found no significant moderation by race/ethnicity in terms of the positive association with DE credits. Lastly, IB credits were less positively associated with the odds of graduating for Asian students compared to White students, while Black and Hispanic students equally benefited from IB hours as compared to White students. We next consider what these results mean for EMI and the racial stratification of higher education.

Discussion

Accelerated credit programs in the United States have grown impressively in the past several decades, both in terms of access to different types of programs and in students’ accumulation of college credits prior to matriculation. To many, this is a laudable development that reflects rising achievements of high school students and potential savings for those who are college-bound (Bragg, Kim, and Barnett 2006). Across seven recent cohorts of FTIC students entering the public four-year institution we studied, accelerated credit grew in prevalence, in variety, and in credits per student. Matriculating with credits from AP, DE, or IB became normative at our study site, to where more than 90% of the most recent entering cohort had some type of early credit. For the class entering university in 2013, the average incoming student had more than 21 credit hours.

Others view the expansion of accelerated credit programs more bleakly, as an arms race of college admission credentialism that reinforces patterns of class and race inequality (Klopfenstein 2004; Klugman 2013). For example, the uneven expansion of accelerated credit programs in California in 2000–2002, in response to litigation related to unequal access, reinforced rather than diminished race and class curricular inequalities in high school (Klugman 2013). These dynamics are consistent with sociological theories like EMI (Lucas 2001) that highlight how advantaged groups sustain their relative advantage in competitive educational arenas through quantitative and qualitative distinctions.

We therefore asked in this paper whether accelerated credit at one university reduced or reinforced racial disparities in college completion across seven cohorts of Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White FTIC students. Informed by EMI, we assessed three hypotheses concerning race/ethnicity, accelerated credit, and college completion. We first hypothesized that White college students would maintain an advantage in accelerated credit relative to Hispanic and Black college students across the seven cohorts we studied. This may be achieved either quantitatively in terms of total hours of credit or qualitatively in terms of having more of the most beneficial types of credit. Though research on accelerated credit does not typically compare the benefits across type, our results confirmed that AP credits increased the odds of college completion among FTIC students more so than did IB or DE credits (Table 4, Model 3). We assume this is due to differences in program origins, entry requirements, degree of curricular standardization, prestige, costs to students, and prevalence across school districts.

The results comparing White and Hispanic students do not support Hypothesis 1. White students’ average number of accelerated credits grew at the slowest rate of any racial/ethnic group, and their average fell behind that of Hispanic students in the more recent cohorts. On the other hand, White students maintained a 5-credit advantage compared to Black students across the seven cohorts, as predicted. The same pattern is true of the most beneficial type of accelerated credit—AP credits—as White students maintained their advantage relative to Black students but not Hispanic students.

For group differences in accelerated credit to contribute to the maintenance of racial inequality in college degree completion, accelerated credit must have an influence on the timing or odds of graduating. Indeed, this was confirmed in our analyses and other studies (Haskell 2016; Karp et al. 2007; Tai et al. 2010). Racial inequality can be further maintained if certain types of accelerated credit yield a lower payoff to degree completion. The multivariate results confirmed this as well. AP credits have a larger positive association with the odds of degree completion than DE credits, as we expected, but also than IB credits, which we did not. However, IB credits are the least common type and grew little among Black, Hispanic, and White students across the seven cohorts. We therefore conclude IB credits are not as relevant as AP and DE in the explaining racial/ethnic disparities in college completion.

Hypothesis 2 stated that racial/ethnic differences in the levels and types of accelerated credit would account for a portion of the racial/ethnic disparities in the odds and timing of degree completion. Again, the results provide only mixed support. As noted, the overall difference in accelerated credits between Black and White students persisted, and underlying that persistent gap was Black students’ greater reliance on DE credits as part of their overall accelerated credit attainment. Since accelerated credits and especially AP credits are associated with completing college, the Black-White difference in college completion would have been smaller if Black students had increased their AP credits as much their DE credits. In contrast, White (and Hispanic) students increased their accelerated credits from both programs at an approximately equal pace. Hypothesis 2 has no support when considering Hispanic students who matriculated at this institution with comparable levels and types of accelerated credit and subsequently completed their degrees faster on average than did White students.

Finally, another mechanism by which accelerated credit might maintain rather than mitigate racial/ethnic inequality in college completion is when the payoffs vary by race/ethnicity and not just by type of credit. The third hypothesis stated that accelerated credits would have a smaller association with college completion for Black and Hispanic students who are overrepresented in high schools with more limited in-school accelerated credit programs and with additional challenges like teacher turnover or resource constraints that undercut the educational benefit of obtaining accelerated credit (O’Connor et al. 2011). Hypothesis 3 considered another means by which accelerated credit might maintain racial/ethnic inequality in higher education, namely if the payoff of accelerated credit to college completion is larger for White students than Black and Hispanic students. In one case we did find supporting evidence: the association between AP credits and degree completion is significantly smaller for Hispanic students than for White students (Model 4, Table 4). This may be due to differences in the quality of AP instruction across schools, or it may relate to differences in which AP courses White and Hispanic students tend to take (e.g., AP Calculus vs. AP Spanish Language and Culture). But in all other instances, Hypothesis 3 is not supported, and we find, for example, that the payoff of AP credits is larger for Black students than for Whites, not smaller.

What do these results suggest about the value of EMI in explaining associations among race, accelerated credit, and college completion? Overall, the hypotheses we derived from the EMI perspective were not especially accurate predictions of the experiences of seven consecutive cohorts at the institution we studied. EMI did best in predicting the Black-White differences: stability in the racial gap in total credits and a higher concentration of less beneficial credits (DE) among Black students, which together mean maintained inequality despite the relentless trend of increasing levels of accelerated credits across all groups. Yet even in this best-case scenario for EMI, the degree of mediation of the race difference in college completion is clearly small. EMI more clearly fails in the case of Hispanic-White comparisons. White students did not maintain an advantage in total credits or in the most beneficial credits compared to Hispanic students, nor did White students have better odds of degree completion. Finally, Asian students fare better than other racial/ethnic groups at every step. Asian students had the highest average number of 28 hours and drew more evenly on all three sources of accelerated credit than any other racial/ethnic group. Asian students had the highest odds of degree completion as well. These are not surprising findings, but they are also not findings one would necessarily predict based on the assumptions of EMI and other literature on the “de-minoritization” of Asian students (Raymundo, 2020) and their college enrollment and graduation outcomes, in which they outperform White students (de Brey et al. 2019; Schmidt 2018).

Perhaps EMI is better suited to explain class differences in accelerated credits and college completion. Or perhaps the racial stratification of education has had its most profound influences upon youth preceding admission to a moderately selective four-year institution. Or perhaps we might uncover more granular forms of racial stratification among these students had we looked at college major. One implication for EMI from these analyses is the idea that qualitative distinctions can evolve to take on quantitative forms as well. When Lucas advanced the EMI perspective in 2001, the empirical example of qualitative distinction was curricular differentiation in high school (curricular tracks). In the race to secure admissions slots in more selective institutions, students engage in an accelerated credit competition in which the quantitative distinctions—the sheer number of AP, IB, and DE classes—is much more important than the qualitative distinction among these programs. This suggests the quantitative/qualitative distinction in EMI has murkier boundaries among contemporary groups vying for access to more desirable postsecondary institutions.

There are two important caveats to be made in terms of our study and its contribution to sociological studies of postsecondary stratification by race. These analyses are based on the college experiences of seven consecutive cohorts of entering students at a single, moderately selective, public university. Beyond the obvious fact that institutional characteristics would shape the pattern of relationships, we are also studying the college outcomes of a relatively talented group of students who were admitted and subsequently enrolled. We encourage additional studies including more than one institution and institutions that vary in type, ethnic composition, academic culture, size, and region of the country.

The measures we used to account for selection into the university—economic disadvantage, high school GPA, and standardized test scores—are the best tools at our disposal to attempt to isolate the benefit of accelerated credit among first-year college students. Controlling for high school GPA and standardized test scores are also likely introducing collider bias that results in an underestimation of accelerated credits’ actual benefit. Completing college-level coursework in high school not only signals college readiness, it also likely increases college readiness and the ability to earn a degree expediently. Thus, we ran our models without high school GPA and without high school GPA and standardized test scores and confirmed that our estimates related to accelerated credits’ collegiate benefits were biased downward. Thus, our approach of including both high school GPA and standardized test scores as controls in our models confirms that our findings better isolate the benefit of accelerated credit among first-year college students.

On the other hand, our study also benefits from the fact that these institutional data cover a substantial number of students across seven cohorts at a major public university from entry to completion or stopout/dropout, which increases our confidence in the racial/ethnic variations we observe. The second related caveat is that in our data there are unaccounted for effects of accelerated credit on college admissions. Our analyses do not capture the benefits of AP, DE, and IB participation on the odds of admission or the selectivity of the institutions at which students matriculate, and as such they do not address the extent to which accelerated credit programs shape racial disparities in college access. According to other studies, we suspect that the completion of accelerated credit in high school improved students’ odds of college enrollment and performance in coursework after matriculation (An and Taylor, 2019; Cisneros et al. 2014; Duffy 2010).

With these caveats in mind, how do the findings extend the literature on the reproduction of postsecondary educational inequality by race? According to scholars like Klugman (2013), Alon (2009, 2010), and Buchmann and colleagues (2010), the stratification of college outcomes is maintained when advantaged communities and families are able to make greater use of, or monopolize access to, impactful educational resources like test-prep services or advanced curriculum opportunities. At the university we studied, accelerated credit opportunities as they existed for these seven cohorts worked in a way that partly reinforced Black-White postsecondary educational inequality. Put differently, racial/ethnic differences in the amount and type of accelerated credit are consistent with the theory of EMI in terms of Black-White comparisons only; expansion and reform efforts have not appreciably narrowed Black-White differences in the average credit hours earned and there are still considerable gaps in the mixture of credits that college students begin with (AP, DE, and IB). We suggest that the qualitative and quantitative distinctions of EMI are less definitive and encourage scholars to continue to pay close attention to the qualitative distinctions of different accelerated credits and their uneven distribution by race.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Hollie Daniels

John Reynolds

Notes

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