Education beyond high school is more critical today than ever before. A high school diploma and at least some college credit are absolutely essential for full participation in today's economy. A four-year college graduate earns 70 percent more than a high school graduate does. Even one year of postsecondary education increases lifetime earnings. The unemployment rate for high school dropouts is four times the rate for college graduates.

Yet far too few youth complete a postsecondary education. Although nearly three-quarters of high school graduates go on to some form of postsecondary education, over half who enter college fail to complete a degree, and one-third never even make it to the sophomore year. The statistics are even more alarming for African Americans and Hispanics, of whom only 16 percent and 11 percent, respectively, complete a four-year college degree by age 29, compared with 28 percent of whites. And Native-American students have the highest K-12 drop-out rates and the lowest college-completion rates of any ethnic group in the United States. We can ill afford this waste of human talent, nor can we ignore the personal choices shut off for young people who do not attain a postsecondary education.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, has provided funding to establish more than 170 Legacy Early College High Schools by 2008. Drawing on lessons learned from the experiences of dual-enrollment programs and small schools, studies of time wasted in the senior year, and existing examples of institutions combining high school and college, the Legacy Early College High School Initiative has established its own distinctive vision and goals to suit the students it is designed to serve.

What Are Legacy Early College High Schools?
Legacy Early College High Schools are small schools from which all students graduate with an Associate of Arts degree or enough college credits to enter a four-year, baccalaureate program as a college junior.

Legacy Early College High Schools share the characteristics of effective small schools (e.g., personalized learning environments, a common and coherent focus, a maximum of 400 students per school, an emphasis on adult-student relationships).

Benefits of Legacy Early College High School
From the perspective of young people, high school is often boring and its purpose unclear. It takes too long to get a diploma, and there are few incentives to do well because college seems both too expensive and out of reach. Legacy Early College High Schools:

• Make higher education more accessible, affordable, and attractive by bridging the divide between high school and college in a physical place;
• Eliminate time wasted during the junior and senior years of high school and facilitate the transition of motivated students to higher education;
• Provide needed guidance and support from adults through the first two years of college; and,
• Demonstrate new ways of integrating levels of schooling to better serve the intellectual and developmental needs of young people.

As a result of enrolling in Legacy Early College High Schools, motivated students will gain access to rigorous teaching and learning. The initiative will increase the number of first-generation, low-income, English language learners, and students of color attaining the Associate's degree or two years of college credit and the opportunity to attain a Bachelor's degree. By changing the structure of the high school years and compressing the number of years to the Associate's degree, Legacy Early College High School also has the potential to save dollars for families and taxpayers and to better prepare students for entry into high-skill careers. In addition, Legacy Early College High School unifies and reconceptualizes academic work from ninth grade through the second year of college, and thus it challenges the structure of our current secondary-postsecondary system.