A new guide provides information to help state and local policymakers develop, expand, and scale up early-college programs for underprepared, low-income students.
Dual-enrollment programs that allow students to earn college credit while still in high school have become popular nationwide, but, in its report, Jobs for the Future, a Boston-based nonprofit, sketches out a vision for programs that make dual enrollment a schoolwide strategy.
While 24 states currently have early-college high schools, Jobs For the Future wants to see every state adopt such programs as a way of ensuring that every student is prepared to earn a postsecondary credential or degree. The report says the graduation rate for early-college schools in 2008 was about 92 percent, while the national average was 69 percent. Upon graduation, 86 percent of students went to college immediately after high school, as opposed to 66 percent nationally.
