Cutbacks Force Some Early Colleges to Close Down

Shantya Gibson, Jalyn Gilbert, and Alexis Heard work a group project in the common area of the Dayton Early College Academy in Dayton, Ohio on Dec. 15. At a time when studies show promising academic outcomes for students participating in early college high schools, some schools are struggling to cover costs.

—James D. DeCamp for Education Week

By Mary Ann Zehr

At a time when two large-scale experimental studies are showing promising outcomes for students who attend early-college high schools, some of those schools are struggling to cover costs or have even had to close for financial reasons.

The 214 early colleges that are part of a national network run by the Boston-based Jobs for the Future are having to be creative about financing since a $107 million investment in them by the Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has mostly been spent and subsidies for them in some states have been cut. The school improvement model enables students to take college courses while still in high school, and many of the participants attain associate degrees by high school graduation.

Over the past two-and-a-half years, two such schools have closed in Georgia, and a District of Columbia high school greatly scaled back its school-within-a-school early-college program. In Ohio, Youngstown State University is transferring responsibility for an early-college high school on its campus to the nearby Eastern Gateway Community College because it can no longer...