Professor Van Ry

Students who attend early-college high schools, which offer students a chance to earn credit toward a college degree while they finish high school, are more likely than are their peers to graduate, enroll in college, and earn an associate degree, concludes a study released on Wednesday by the American Institutes for Research.

The study examined 10 schools that were part of the Early College High School Initiative, which was created by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2002 and was designed to keep students, particularly those from low-income backgrounds, from dropping out of high school and to give them better opportunities to succeed in college.

It found that 86 percent of students in early-college high schools graduated, compared with 81 percent of their peers. It also found that college enrollment among early-college students outpaced such enrollment in the study’s comparison group, especially at two-year institutions: 59 percent of early-college students enrolled at two-year institutions, compared with 38 percent of the comparison group.

The study also found that 54 percent of early-college students enrolled at four-year institutions, compared with 47 percent of their peers. And the study found that early-college students were significantly more likely than were their peers in the comparison group to earn college degrees, though almost all were associate degrees.

Via Nick DeSantis, The Chronicle of Higher Ed.