Off to a Running Start Toward College

For Needy High Schoolers, Free Classes at UDC Mean Time and Money Saved

Flonora Merritt, a 15-year-old District high school sophomore with a 3.9 grade-point average, is already planning for college graduation. That's when she finally can become a forensic detective like superstar DNA sleuth Gil Grissom on her favorite TV show, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."

Working as a forensic detective "is better than being a lawyer," she says. "Instead of lying, you tell the truth through science."

She might be closer to realizing her career goals than most of her peers. For Flonora, with 12 credit hours already completed and six more underway, college isn't tomorrow's dream but today's reality.

Flonora is among 69 students at Friendship Public Charter School's Collegiate Academy in Northeast Washington who are enrolled in the school's early college program. It allows them to take courses without charge at the University of the District of Columbia. If her plans fall into place, Flonora, upon graduation from Friendship in June 2008, will have earned about 60 credit hours from UDC, saving her parents thousands of dollars in tuition and giving herself a two-year head start on college.

"It would be nice to graduate quicker than everybody else and get to the career I want earlier," she said.

For now, the UDC professors come to her and other 10th-graders at Friendship. When she reaches 11th grade, she will travel to the university's Northwest Washington campus to take her courses.

Friendship is one of two D.C. public schools offering the early college program. At Bell Multicultural Senior High, a traditional public school in Northwest, students have the opportunity to enroll in Northern Virginia Community College.

Both schools are part of a broad movement nationwide to reinvent high schools, boost college graduation rates among low-income minority students and provide a seamless transition from elementary and secondary schools to post-secondary studies and the work world.

The concept of linking high school and college programs was launched in the 1970s with "middle college" and "2+2" programs. In those long-standing programs, high school students largely enroll in community college courses.

In 2002, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation introduced the Early College Initiative -- which includes the Friendship program -- aimed at reducing the high school dropout rate among low-income minority students and boosting the number of such students going to college. The foundation is providing more than $120 million in grants to help high schools become smaller and more rigorous so they can better prepare students for college and employment.

Unlike the middle colleges, the Gates program, which operates in more than 20 states, enrolls high school students mainly in universities and four-year colleges.

So far, the initiative has established 67 programs enrolling about 12,000 students. By 2011, officials plan to have more than 165 programs enrolling 62,000.