by Sebastian Rivera

Massachusetts should expand access to Early College programs because it is a leading force in closing educational gaps, improving college affordability, and helping meet the workforce needs of our Commonwealth.

Massachusetts is recognized as an educational leader, but it has significant inequities. According to data from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, while White students in Massachusetts have a 50% chance of earning a college degree within six years of their high school graduation, Black, Latino, and low-income students have a 20% chance of achieving the same feat. However, Early College is a great way to help underrepresented students earn college degrees.

As an Early College high school graduate and a current Early College Policy Fellow for the Massachusetts Alliance for Early College, I can attest to how Early College improves college success.

According to an analysis from MassINC, Early College students in Massachusetts are 38 percent more likely than their peers to enroll in college immediately after high school and 53 percent more likely to remain enrolled one year later. In a state like Massachusetts where degree attainment is especially important for economic mobility, Early College closes opportunity gaps for underrepresented students.

Early College allows students to take real college courses while still in high school, at no cost to themselves or their families.

Freshman and sophomore years are focused on career and college exploration, and by junior and senior year, students take courses within a specific career pathway. This allows students to discover career pathways they are passionate about while earning college credits toward a degree. Students can graduate with up to a year’s worth of transferable credits, allowing them to jump right into their major with the confidence and skills to succeed.

As an alumnus of the Early College program in Lowell, I graduated high school with 23 college credits and the confidence to declare my major in sociology. The experience provided me with time management, self-advocacy, and study habits to succeed in college.

The program also has an amazing impact on the community. Early College Lowell has served about 4,000 Lowell High School students, who have taken more than 5,100 classes and earned nearly 10,000 credits toward a college degree, saving families an estimated $2.47 million in tuition and fees.

Early College is good for the Commonwealth as well. Economic strength in our state is tied to the educational level of the workforce. MassINC predicts that by 2030, Massachusetts will have 200,000 college-educated workers short of the workforce we need for the state’s leading industries. Today’s students are tomorrow’s workforce, and Early College has the potential to be a leading workforce development strategy in our state.

Early College is the bridge between high school and college success. In light of educational achievement gaps, college affordability stresses, and the crisis of workforce needs, Early College can be a leading program in aiding student achievement.

With our collective voices sharing the importance of Early College, more students will experience the kind of high-quality education that provides students like me access to higher education.