Almost 300 Colorado high school seniors are eligible for a state-paid year of college this fall — a policy garnering attention from the nation’s capital as a model to push poor kids to higher education.
Colorado’s “fifth-year” program allows seniors to elect to have high schools withhold their diplomas for a year so they can go to college on the state’s dime.
State education leaders aren’t yet sure how many students will take advantage of the program, estimated to cost about $1.7 million this year.
Participating students, who must have at least 12 college credits by the spring of their senior year to be eligible, can go to any public college in Colorado, as long as the high school sets it up.
Previously, high schoolers could get some college credit through advanced courses, but the fifth-year program expands the opportunity to far more students.
“Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes are wonderful, but there is still a huge achievement gap,” said Scott Mendelsberg, executive director of the GEAR UP program at the Colorado Department of Higher Education, which seeks to give high schoolers the opportunity to earn college credit.
Mendelsberg recently flew to Washington, D.C., to tout Colorado’s progress to federal education officials.
“If they (AP and IB programs) were really working, then the achievement gap wouldn’t be what it is,” he said.
While this fall will mark the first time schools statewide can participate in the fifth-year plan, existing programs that target low-income or potential first-generation college students have already shown promise.
At Denver’s Martin Luther King Jr. Early College, for example, all 76 seniors are going to four-year colleges this fall — a success story that principal Allen Smith attributes to establishing a college culture early.
Students at MLK take college classes in the building. Smith imports professors from the Community College of Aurora to teach and fits the program around the sophomore, junior and senior class schedules.
The fifth-year program got its start about five years ago when principals at a handful of low-income schools — Denver’s Abraham Lincoln, for one — started holding back diplomas and enrolling students in community colleges as a way to push them toward higher education.
Last year, state lawmakers passed legislation allowing any high school to participate, as long as they meet a handful of criteria.
“We think those changes are so profound that it catapulted Colorado to the front of the country in this,” said Matt Gianneschi, a vice president at the Community College of Aurora and former education adviser to Gov. Bill Ritter. “It’s the way we see the future, blending K-12 and higher education.”
Federal officials agree.
The Obama administration has proposed a $2.5 billion venture capital “College Access and Completion Fund.”
The fund would push efforts to increase college graduation rates as well as nourish programs such as the ones in place at MLK, said Stephanie Babyak, a Department of Education spokeswoman.
Data show kids who get some college before high school graduation have a greater likelihood to go to a university and finish a bachelor’s degree.
Aurora Central High has a similar program, except its participants mostly attend classes at one of the Community College of Aurora campuses.
A program director found that 92 percent of the Aurora Central High students who had college credits went to college and 70 percent of those went to a university.
Of the 277 students statewide eligible for a fifth year of high school, 166 are from Aurora Public Schools.
College exposure helped Monica Garcia acclimate to a much more mature setting.
“It’s weird to sit next to a 60-year- old returning to school,” said Garcia, set to graduate from Aurora Central in May. “It’s weird to be a high schooler in there. You try to stay quiet, but sometimes the teacher points it out and then the class expects you to be a little mini-genius.”
Garcia is the likely class valedictorian and, at age 17, will have 54 college credits when she graduates.
Allison Sherry: 303-954-1377 or asherry@denverpost.com
