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Early colleges are a new model of schooling in which the high school and college experiences are merged, shortening the total amount of time a student spends in school. This study uses a lottery-based experimental design to examine the impact of the model on longer term outcomes, including attainment of a postsecondary credential and academic performance in four-year institutions. Results show that a significantly higher proportion of early college students were attaining postsecondary credentials. The results also show that early college students were completing their degrees more rapidly but that their performance in four-year institutions was still comparable to the control students. [This is the online version of an article published in "Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis."]

The STEM Early College Expansion Project is an effort to integrate STEM strategies with the early college model and implement this in comprehensive high schools. This report summarizes findings from two separate quasi-experimental impact studies of the model in Michigan and Connecticut. Results from Michigan showed statistically significant impacts on enrollment in college-level courses and on attainment of college credits. Treatment schools in Michigan also had descriptively lower dropout rates. The Connecticut impact study had challenges with the study design that resulted in an inability to make clear causal claims about the impact.

This study examined why some seniors attending Early College High Schools did not plan to continue their education at a 4-year college immediately after graduation despite attending schools designed to provide coordinated academic and social supports with the expectation that all students would continue their education. Most students in our study (75%) did plan to continue their education at a 4-year college immediately after graduation. For the remaining students, we used cluster analysis to identify four distinct groups of non-college bound students. These groups were evaluated based on background characteristics, perceived opportunities and barriers, and schooling experiences. Results indicate that non-college bound students are diverse in their reasons for not continuing their education at a 4-year program and that any reform efforts designed to personalize opportunities and supports for these students must take into account how combinations of perceived opportunities and barriers shape their postsecondary decisions. [This paper was published in "Psychology in the Schools" v56 n7 p1117-1138 2019 (EJ1221093).]