Building The 18-Year-Old College Graduate | Gardner program offers diploma, associate's degree at once
Since 2006, Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner has been serving high school dropouts and near-dropouts with Gateway to College, a program designed to motivate students by letting them pursue high school and college degrees at the same time.
The program is doing well, according to Patricia Gregson, vice president of access and transition at the college, but there has been one problem. It started getting inquiries from students who liked the concept of getting on with their education right away but who didn’t fit the school’s mission.
“They were just disengaged from high school,” Gregson said. “They didn’t have attendance issues. They weren’t really in danger of dropping out.”
A New Model
So, this fall, a new high school will open at the college. Known as the Pathways Early College Innovation School, it’s scheduled to enroll 20 high school juniors this year and cap out at a maximum of 40 11th- and 12th- grade students. Assuming they’re sufficiently motivated, the students will be able to graduate from high school on schedule and get an associate’s degree at the same time.
The new Pathways school is the second “Innovation” school approved in Massachusetts. Created as part of an education reform bill that Gov. Deval Patrick signed in January, the public schools are designed to foster creative approaches to education. Unlike charter schools, they are part of a particular school district.
Like the Gateway program, Pathways is a partnership between Mount Wachusett and the Ralph C. Mahar Regional School District. Participants either come from the Mahar region, which consists of New Salem, Orange, Petersham and Wendell, or they use school choice to switch to the Mahar district and then attend the school.
The college has started holding information sessions for interested students, and Gregson said the kids who are showing up have a whole variety of reasons for doing so. Some budget-minded applicants like the sound of a chance to get two years of college for free. Others are bored with high school, or find its structure hard to handle.
Some may already know that they want to pursue a career in nursing, green technology or other fields where MWCC has a particularly strong program.
The stated purpose of the school is to “provide motivated students, many of whom face particular socio-economic and other challenges, with an alternate pathway to higher education.”
Gregson said applicants will need to be ready to handle a rigorous curriculum that includes classes over summers and other breaks. But they’ll also get assistance in figuring out a path through college, including guidance about possible career plans.
The notion of sending teenagers who aren’t necessarily thriving academically off to college early might sound strange. Not long ago, the typical image of high-school-aged student on campus was a Doogie Howser-esqe overachiever. But over the last decade that has been changing.
With strong support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which provided some of the funding for Gateway to College at Mount Wachusett, more than 200 “Early College High Schools” have emerged around the country. The schools help students from low-income families, English language learners and others with barriers to higher education attend two years of college while finishing high school.
Ruth Feldman, director of the Dorchester-based Project for School Innovation, which has helped other Massachusetts high schools develop programs for at-risk students, said it makes sense for such programs to build a strong bridge between high school and college. She said students who had trouble in high school often find college virtually impossible to navigate without help.
“They need a huge amount of support during that first year,” she said. “You are on your own. You don’t have someone calling you if you don’t show up to class.”
Gregson said the MWCC program’s budget for the first year is $130,000, and the cost of educating a student through the new school is comparable to a traditional high school. She said Pathways will hold its expenses down by keeping the students together in class for the first semester.
The Pathways program also shares some administrative costs with the Gateway program.
Gregson said students who go through the program should find themselves at 18 years old ready to start a career or transfer into a four-year college as a junior.
“Whatever’s right for the student is what we’re trying,” she said.
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