Deep Research + Data · September 13, 2026
From a national directory to a usable pathway
81 partnership/program records · 58 institutions and systems · all 50 states. A curated baseline for the National CTE website.
Scope and research design
This is a purposive, source-backed national baseline covering all 50 states. It includes named college–district, college–school and college–regional-program examples, across two-year/community, technical and four-year providers. It is not an exhaustive directory of every institution or agreement. It does not promise all institution types in every state. DC and territories are outside this release. Publicly accessible official college, school, district and state-system pages were prioritized, including program directories, school guidance, agreement indexes and announcements. Broad program searches were followed by searches for named partners and exact source pages. No institution was contacted to confirm its current intake.
Inclusion and exclusion
A record requires an official source naming the college and school partner in a dual-credit, dual-enrollment or early-college context. A general college statement that high-school students may enroll is insufficient by itself. School-level evidence is retained at school level; it is not silently expanded to every school in its district. AP alone, articulated credit earned only after later college enrollment, transfer-only university relationships and noncredit career exploration are not counted as equivalent dual-credit partnerships. Early-college models that can extend beyond grade 12 are included with that distinction. A regional program and its participating school may be separate program records, not independent contracts.
What one row means
The unit is one named institution–school partner–program combination. Institutions spanning multiple campuses are kept at the level named in the source; for Eastern Iowa Community Colleges, the system is retained until a campus transcript issuer is established. A program may contain multiple pathways without each becoming another record. The 81 records are not 81 unique contracts, districts or colleges. Counts of institutions use distinct recorded provider names and include systems. School/district names are source-based display labels rather than NCES identifiers; entity matching to official IDs is a recommended next enrichment.
Evidence status and time
Documented means an official page supports the named relationship. It does not mean a signed agreement, every section, seat availability or a student's eligibility was verified. Dated evidence identifies an older publication whose continuation needs checking. The checked date is September 13, 2026. Publication dates and academic periods are recorded only when the source establishes them; a website copyright date is not a program date. The Arkansas, Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and South Dakota records visibly identify dated evidence. Some newer announcements describe intended operations rather than observed enrollment.
Missing values and consistency
Not specified and null values mean this review did not establish a field; they do not mean zero cost, no eligibility requirements or no available delivery option. Cost details are selectively captured where decision-relevant, especially the Maryland funding change and the South Carolina example. Subject tags describe evidence at the program level; a broad technical pathway does not prove every course is available at every partner school. No numerical confidence score, estimated revenue, student count or state rank is manufactured from the sample. A refresh should inspect competing pages before changing a value, using dated local program guidance and the applicable agreement to resolve conflicts.
Data quality checks
The accompanying validation script checks the exact 50-state set, unique record IDs, duplicate institution–partner–program combinations, required fields, recognized types, source URLs, evidence dates and agreement between the website data and downloadable data. It also reports missing cost and eligibility fields. These structural checks complement source review; they do not establish that an external website's information is correct or up to date. Automated link resolution and a human review of the current agreement remain useful maintenance work.
Website application
The national explorer supports state, institution-type, subject, delivery and text filters; selection of up to three records; source inspection; and a state-brief link. The same dataset appears in the Dual Enrollment page and each state brief. Comparisons keep missing costs and eligibility visible. The state index shows all states without changing policy priority colors. The South Carolina example demonstrates the desired level of course evidence. The downloadable research and JSON preserve an inspectable baseline for future enrichment.
Maintenance and next research pass
Recommendation: assign a research owner and a review date to each record; recheck before each academic year's intake and before any enrollment or commercial commitment. Seek the signed agreement, the current school-specific course list, transcript issuer, award applicability, total student cost, prerequisites, teaching arrangements, advising, accessible delivery and required practical experiences. Prioritize older evidence and missing operational fields. Add rural and underserved districts and multiple provider types systematically before comparing state coverage. Keep additions, removals and conflicting sources in a change log. This release creates no scheduled monitoring or automatic updates.
Measures of website value
Proposed measures: successful state-to-partnership navigation, source-link usage, comparisons completed and documented requests for partnership follow-up. For an implemented pathway, define eligible students, enrollment completion, credits attempted and earned, degree-applicable credits, credential completion, student out-of-pocket costs and staff processing time. Disaggregate where appropriate and lawful. Those measures need a baseline and explicit denominators; the present directory contains no outcome evaluation and supports no causal claim that a product or delivery mode improves attainment.