The Impact, Costs, and Benefits of NC’s Early College Model Julie Edmunds, SERVE Center at UNCG Fatih Unlu and Tiffany Tsai, RAND Corporation Elizabeth Glennie, RTI International

North Carolina’s model… Small high schools that blur the line between high school and college Mostly located on college campuses Serve students in grades 9-12 or 13 Targeted at students who are underrepresented in college First generation; low-income; minority Goal is to get a high school diploma and two years of college credit/Associate degree

Powerful Teaching and Learning Students Graduating from High School Ready for College College Ready Powerful Teaching and Learning Purposeful Design Professionalism Leadership Personalization Articulated program of study, grades 9-12 or 13 leading to Associate’s degree, college readiness activities Academic and affective supports, supportive relationships High-quality, rigorous, and relevant instruction, ongoing assessment Make sure to discuss target populations Shared leadership, shared vision Small size, location on college campus, flexible use of time Ongoing professional development, staff collaboration, collective responsibility

METHODOLOGY

Research Questions What is the impact of the early college model on students’ postsecondary credential attainment? What are the costs of the early college pathway compared to the traditional high school pathway? What are the benefits to society of the early college?

Experimental Study of the Model’s Impact Funded by three grants from the Institute of Education Sciences Twelve-year experimental study comparing students who applied to and were randomly offered a slot in the ECHS with students who applied for and were randomly turned down Examines the impact of the model on core outcomes: coursetaking, academic performance, behavior, attitudes, dropout, graduation from high school, postsecondary enrollment, college credit attainment, postsecondary performance and postsecondary credentials

Sample Students apply and schools do some screening Random assignment within the “eligible population” Full sample: 19 ECHS, 44 lotteries, 4000 students Cohorts: 2005-06 through 2010-11 Attrition varies across data sources and outcomes: generally low (<10%) and similar between treatment and control groups. Low noncompliance with random assignment: 13% no-shows, 2% crossovers Control students attend “business as usual”

Data Sources Student background characteristics and high school data from NC Department of Public Instruction Postsecondary credential attainment from the National Student Clearinghouse College coursetaking data from UNC and NC Community College Systems High school expenditure data from NCDPI Postsecondary expenditure data from Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)

Analysis Intent-to-Treat Multivariate linear regression models which includes lottery indicators (or lottery fixed effects) treatment indicator baseline student characteristics, including demographics and 8th grade math and reading achievement Report cluster-robust standard errors to account for clustering of students within ECHS or regular high schools Estimate separate models for 4 subgroups: minority, first generation, economically disadvantaged, and underprepared for high school Compared results for sub-group with results for corresponding group (ex. minority and non-minority) Each student is weighted by their likelihood of getting into the lottery. Because the random assignment and the analyses occur at the same level, we have chosen to use regression with site-level indicators. This is the methodology used by IES charter school study.

Impacts, Costs and benefits

Adjusted Treatment Mean Adjusted Impact, ITT estimate Impact on Postsecondary Credentials: Full Sample Adjusted Treatment Mean Control Mean Adjusted Impact, ITT estimate % Attainment of any postsecondary credential by eight years after 9th grade (N=1671 students) 37.0 22.2 14.8** % Attainment of associate degree 28.4 8.8 19.6** % Attainment of technical credential 2.2 3.0 -0.8 % Attainment of Bachelor’s degree 18.1 12.8 5.3** *Significant at p≤.05; **significant at p≤.01. 11

*Significant at p≤.05; **significant at p≤.01. Difference between subgroups is statistically significant. *Significant at p≤.05; **significant at p≤.01. 12

Early college is a combined model (college and high school) so costs and benefits IS challenging…

Conceptualizing costs High school diploma Two-year degree Four-year degree

Calculated Expenditures for what students actually did HS expenditures excluded special ed, capital expenditures, & district-level costs Credential Sample Cost factors High School Diploma All students who received a h.s. diploma (1,999 treatment, 1,395 control) Students for whom the h.s. diploma was a terminal degree (807 treatment/713 control) H.S. expenditures plus cost for any college courses students took in high school Associate degree All students who received an Associate degree (may have gone on) and have data from NC community college system (653 treatment/ 116 control) H.S. expenditures plus cost for any college courses students took until they received their Associate degree Bachelor’s degree All students who received a Bachelor’s degree and have complete data from the NC system (60 Treatment/28 control) H.S. expenditures plus cost for any college courses students took until they received their Bachelor’s degree

Cost to an educational credential (from Society’s Perspective) Early College Pathway Traditional High School Pathway High school diploma (all students including those with postsecondary credentials) $36,906 $26,656 High school diploma (students with maximum of HS diploma only) $32,019 $24,859 HS diploma plus a NC Community College two-year degree $45,762 $48,356 HS diploma plus a UNC system four-year degree $91,192 $121,626

Total credits attempted are similar, with early college Students earning more from community college system Total:165.6 Total:170.1

GPA in the UNC system—after leaving early college Adjusted Treatment Mean Unadjusted Control Mean Impact Estimate Cumulative UNC System GPA Through two years after 12th grade (grade 14) 2.60 2.56 .04 Through three years after 12th grade (grade 15) 2.62 2.59 .03 First semester 2.78 2.71 .06

Estimating benefits Benefits estimated by RAND for specific racial and gender sub- groups (e.g., AA males, Hispanic females) by increased educational attainment compared to h.s. dropouts Includes benefits like increased taxes, reduced welfare, judicial costs Each student was placed in one of five buckets based on actual or predicted final educational attainment: High school dropout High school dropout, some college High school graduate High school graduate, some college Four-year college graduate Each student received an estimated benefit for their subgroup Impacts on societal benefit were estimated with our impact model .

Lifetime benefits to society are higher for early college Each cohort of 4,000 NC early college students who graduate annually would result in an increase of $92 million of lifetime societal benefits.

Conclusions More early college students are earning postsecondary credentials, resulting in an increased benefit to society. They are doing this at a lower cost to society than the traditional route. Next steps will be to (hopefully!) explore the impacts on wage and earnings.