The study investigated the impact of dual enrollment participation on the academic preparation of first-year full-time college students at a large comprehensive community college and a large research university. The research design was causal-comparative and utilized descriptive and inferential statistics. Multivariate analysis of variances were used to address the specific research question of whether dual enrollment participation and course completion impacts the cumulative college grade point average and first completed year persistence rates of first-year full-time college students. The results of the study revealed that dual enrollment participation does have a statistically significant role in higher cumulative college GPA for first-year full-time college students at both institutions studied. Students that attended the community college did not have statistically significant better persistence rates, but students at the research university who had prior dual enrollment credits did have statistically significant higher persistence rates than those students who did not. The results of the study add to the literature on the academic benefits of dual enrollment participation, as well as provide college and high school administrators a better understanding of how dual enrollment participation prepares students for academic success as they transition to full-time college enrollments.