Georgia established the Dual Enrollment Accelerated Career Diploma (ACD) program in 2015 to address its skilled trades workforce shortage (Dual Enrollment Act, 2015: Williams, 2015). ACD allows high school students to earn their diplomas by replacing several of their graduation-required credits with technical college credentials earned through…

Amidst the tapestry of public education lie the stories of early college high school (ECHS) students, students with valuable insights into the transformative nature of juggling secondary and postsecondary education. Their experiences are somewhat unknown to the education community at large. ECHS programs are designed to bridge the gap between high…

Academic advising for dual credit and early college high school students is significant to postsecondary matriculation and degree completion of these students after high school graduation. Unstructured advising can lead students to take excess credits and have an unclear path to a postsecondary credential. This study focused on the importance of…

Dual enrollment is an early college opportunity for high school students who are in an eligible high school class with a qualified high school instructor. Research has shown that participation in an early college program like dual enrollment increases college persistence and retention rates post high school. However, students from underrepresented…

LGBTQ students often have a secondary school experience fraught with bullying, mental health struggles, and marginalization. In this qualitative study, we examined teacher and administrator perspectives on school supports for LGBTQ students using data collected for a larger project on early college high schools (ECHS) in Texas. Using an ethic of…

Early colleges are high schools that blend the high school and college experiences. They have been shown to increase college enrollment and completion; however less is known about the costs of the early college model relative to traditional high schools. We leverage randomized assignment of North Carolina students to early colleges to estimate the…

Participation in accelerated learning programs (defined in this study as Advanced Placement, Dual Enrollment, and International Baccalaureate) continues to expand across the US. As such, it is important to better our understanding of the relationship among these three programs concerning measures of student postsecondary achievement. Prior…

Early colleges can play a key role in bridging the gap between high school and higher education. In addition to allowing students to earn transferrable college credits for free, these schools boost students' chances of applying to and earning a college degree. This pertains especially to students who are traditionally underrepresented in higher…

This research articulates the views of 25 early college high school leaders regarding their leadership philosophies and how their perspectives inform ECHS student outcomes. The research sought to understand how leaders describe how their philosophies and leadership attributes support student achievement in ECHS. The research posed three questions:…

Early College High Schools (ECs) aim to increase postsecondary enrollment and degree attainment, specifically among historically minoritized populations. Research outlines the positive outcomes of ECs, yet less research examines the unintended consequences of these consolidated college preparation programs. Through interviews with 13 EC graduates,…

Early colleges are a model of schooling that combines the high school and college experiences, providing students the opportunity to simultaneously earn a high school diploma and an associate degree or 2 years of college credit. This article updates findings from a 17-year longitudinal experimental study of the model, examining the impact of the…

This report demonstrates the success of the early college high school program at Lawrence High School. It has improved outcomes for participants, significantly increasing the chances that they will enter college right after high school and earn a degree. While no single educational intervention is a panacea, early college deserves to be scaled--in…

This qualitative, improvement science, autoethnographic case study aims to examine a unique perspective on rural research through the lens of place-conscious leadership. With an identified problem of inequity in advanced-level course offerings, which resulted in lost student opportunities and student attrition to neighboring schools, the…

Early college high school (ECHS) and dual enrollment programs offer opportunities for students to work toward their 2-year degree while still in high school. The problem for this study was that the ECHS and dual enrollment programs had not been compared to see if they facilitated 2-year college degree completion compared to one another and to a…

Texas has approximately 200 designated early college high schools (ECHS). The present study aimed to acquire feedback from ECHS graduates to identify how students could be prepared more effectively for postsecondary education degree attainment and identify potential areas of disconnect between ECHS and 4-year colleges. To explore early college…