Highlights from the MCNC Early College Student Survey Report (2005-06)

The Middle College National Consortium (MCNC) consists of a network of high schools across the nation, located on community college campuses, which provide historically underrepresented youth with access to college. The Consortium supports these small schools in implementing six design principles that lay the foundation for an excellent high school education leading to postsecondary success. Students typically enroll in both high school and college classes. Building on this history, the MCNC, with support from the Gates, Ford, and Carnegie Foundations, has taken this initiative to the next level. The Middle-College Early-College (MC-EC) High Schools blur the border between high school and the community college to create "blended institutions" that offer a dual degree program. Taking a mixture of high school and college courses, students work to attain both a high school diploma and associates degree in four to five years. For the past four years, NCREST has provided research and evaluation support to the MCNC related to the development and implementation of their Early Colleges. This brief is drawn from a larger report titled "Early College Student Survey Report Academic Year 2005-2006 and Longitudinal Analysis 2003-2005" and is based on analysis of NCREST's 2005-2006 student survey, which assesses students' perceptions of and experiences with the schools and the Early College initiative. Schools administered the survey to their 9th and 11th graders in the spring of 2006. In all, 1,552 students were surveyed, of whom 880 (57%) were 9th graders and 672 (43%) were 11th graders. This brief provides a summary of data from the 2005-2006 academic year and tracks changes across time, from 2003 to 2005 in terms of student demographics, students' educational aspirations, students' school-related activities and habits, students' sense of self-efficacy, attitudes, and beliefs about education in general, and students' beliefs about college and the college-going process. (Contains 13 figures and 1 footnote.)