
A Head Start on College
Colleges used
to target affluent, overach
iev
ing h
igh school students w
ith classes des
igned
to g
ive them a jump start on h
igher educat
ion. But more and more schools are now des
ign
ing early adm
iss
ions programs for h
igh school students who m
ight otherw
ise not get a college degree. Sandh
ills Commun
ity College for example, allows students from SandHoke Early College H
igh School
to get a d
iploma and up
to two
years of college cred
it
in only f
ive
years, at no cost. But the program
is only open
to students whose parents
do not have a college degree.
SandHoke
is one of 70-early college schools
in North Carol
ina, and the goal of the program
is
to keep so-called at-r
isk students from dropp
ing out by br
idg
ing the gap
between h
igh school and college. “Last year, half our early-college h
igh schools had zero dropouts, and that’s just unprecedented for North Carol
ina, where only 62 percent of our h
igh school students graduate
after four
years,”
Tony Hab
it, pres
ident of the North Carol
ina New Schools Project
told the New York T
imes.