Study: Early college graduates advance
March 30, 2013 - New findings from an ongoing experimental study of North Carolina's early college high schools show that students who enrolled in the innovative schools were more likely to have progressed in postsecondary education compared to a similar group of students who enrolled in other high schools.
Among about 700 students who started 9th grade in 2005, 2006 and 2007, preliminary results show that 86 percent of early college students had ever enrolled in postsecondary education, compared to 65 percent of students in a control group. In addition, the study found that a higher percentage of early college students were enrolled in a 4-year college or university six years after 9th grade (32 percent), compared to 22 percent of the control group.
In terms of college completion, 28 percent of the students in the "treatment" group had earned an associate degree, compared to just 1 percent of the "control" group students.
The outcomes, presented last month at a national conference of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness, are part of an eight-year randomized study by the SERVE Center at UNC Greensboro that is following the progress of more than 2,000 students who enrolled in early college, based on random selection, and a control group of students who applied to early college but randomly excluded. Both groups of students -- treatment and control -- were similarly motivated to apply to early college, with blends high school with the first two years of college.
The outcomes are based on data from the National Student Clearinghouse, which gathers college enrollment data by student name for about 94 percent of students enrolled in colleges and universities nationwide.
According to Clearinghouse data collected independently by NC New Schools for the first 13 early colleges to open, all in 2005, 31 percent of about 1,900 graduates earned associate degrees.
