NSCC Dean touts benefits of Early College program

By Adam Swift

Revere High School’s inclusion in the state’s expanded Early College Program will be a boon for the city’s students, as well as for North Shore Community College, according to Walter Stone, the new dean of the program at the college.

Last month, the state legislature approved adding nine new school districts, including Revere, to the state-wide program. With these additional programs, nearly 7,800 Massachusetts students are projected to be enrolled in Early College programs at local state universities and colleges by the upcoming school year.

Three Lynn high schools, Danvers High, and Essex Tech already participate in the program at North Shore Community College, according to Stone.

“We’ve grown in the last two years by 300 percent, we have three times the number of students that we had at the beginning, so it’s been a lot of growth to offer the early college programs,” said Stone.

The program is a tool that supports increased college enrollment among the high school participants from groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education, and helps them succeed once they are on campus, he added.

“Early College has also been shown to boost college completion rates for low-income, minority, and first generation college students,” said Stone. “Early College students enroll in college at significantly higher rates than their high school peers,” said Stone.

In 2019, approximately 76 percent of the Early College students enrolled in college after high school graduation, compared to 56 percent of their peers who did not participate in Early College, Stone said.

There are also a number of benefits for the college itself.

“We experience boosts in our enrollment and also in graduation outcomes of our students,” said Stone.

Early College also helps prepare students for the college workload.

“Students will always experience new experiences as they transition from being high school students into college, but having those credits that they have earned is a real good stepping stone for them,” said Stone. “It removes a lot of barriers that as a college we are trying to remove, and it helps us to figure out how to deliver programs to remove those barriers.”

Stone, who has been at North Shore Community College for nearly two decades as a math professor and then as an assistant dean, said he is looking forward to leading the Early College program on campus.

The Massachusetts Early College program gives students the opportunity to take college courses and earn credits at no cost before they graduate high school. Early College allows students to get a head start on their higher education and contributes to significantly higher college enrollment and completion rates, particularly for low-income, minority and first-generation college students. 

Education Secretary and former Lynn Superintendent of Schools Patrick Tutwiler said the early career paths like those provided by Early College and Innovation Pathways programs are how the state can start to reimagine and transform high schools by empowering students with opportunities for success.