Bard High School Early College Manhattan: A Comprehensive Overview
Bard High School Early College (BHSEC) Manhattan stands as a unique and innovative educational institution, offering a tuition-free pathway for students to earn both a high school diploma and an Associate in Arts degree from Bard College. This model, replicated across multiple campuses, seeks to improve the transition from high school to college and increase access and success in higher education, particularly for students who may not otherwise have such opportunities.
The Bard Early College (BEC) Model
Bard High School Early College (BHSEC) Manhattan is a campus of Bard Early College (BEC), which seeks to improve the transition from high school to college and increase access and success in higher education. As a tuition-free satellite campus of Bard College, a nonprofit liberal arts college based in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, BHSEC Manhattan is defined by academic quality, innovation, and its public service commitment. BHSEC Manhattan seeks to inspire curiosity, a love of learning, and civic engagement in its students; equip and empower students to access and complete higher education; and prepare its graduates for a range of educational, professional, and civic pathways.
The Bard High School Early Colleges (BHSECs), which first opened in 2001, represent Bard’s effort to extend the liberal arts college experience to public high school students who might not otherwise have access to it. BHSECs offer public high school students rigorous coursework and exposure to other markers of the liberal arts experience, the opportunity to earn college credit and an associate’s degree alongside their high school diploma, and intensive support in applying to and transitioning to a four-year college or university.
A Rigorous Academic Experience
BHSEC Manhattan offers small class sizes, excellent teaching, and the promise of two years of college credit for free. The demanding, fast-paced curriculum has attracted some of the city's best students. Students complete their high school requirements in two years and then embark on college work. After four years, they receive both a Regents diploma and an associate's degree.
Most of the teachers have PhDs, and classes are organized as college seminars, with lots of opportunities for give-and-take between the teachers and students. Faculty members are both experts in their field and passionate about sharing their knowledge with their students. Students, too, are passionate about their studies and may be heard talking about Kant or Machiavelli on the M14 bus that runs near the school (the nearest subway is a 20-minute walk).
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Bard College contributes to the high school’s budget, enabling it to offer a wider array of courses than other public high schools its size. Course titles include The Novels of Dostoevsky, Forced Migration in Contemporary Africa, The History of American Education, Engineering, Urban Ecology, Computer Science, and Medicinal Chemistry. Once in the college program, students have the option of creating their own independent study and selecting a faculty advisor. Class size is typically about 20 students. Far more writing is expected of BHSEC students than of typical high schoolers. Students can expect three hours of homework, and some say they regularly work for four or five hours daily.
“The standards for work are really, really high,” a mother of one student told InsideSchools. “There is no way to fake it through this school.” Faculty members are more than willing to provide students extra help individually or in small groups. In the library, there is a writing center and math center that students can take advantage of as often as they’d like. Still, the fast pace and high expectations are unmanageable for some students.
College Preparation and Admissions
BHSEC’s college office gives far more individual attention than is typical in larger New York City public schools. Each student is guided by both the head of the College Transfer Office (CTO), Beth Cheikes, and a CTO advisor who serves only about 20 students. "We have the time to write really good letters," said Cheikes. Students enroll in a CTO advising course, and they can consult the writing center for help with supplements and college essays. In the past, students have been admitted to a range of schools including Stanford, Yale, Wesleyan, Swarthmore, Binghamton, Middlebury, Haverford, Brown and Reed College. Students have also been selected as Posse Scholars. CUNY and SUNY accept the full two years of college credit, allowing students to enter as juniors. Some private colleges (including Bard College) accept the full two years; others accept less than one semester.
The BHSEC Advantage: Access, Affordability, and Success
An independent evaluation conducted by the research firm Metis Associates provides evidence that the BHSEC model improves access, affordability, and success in higher education for its students. Compared to similarly situated peers in other district schools, New York City BHSEC students are significantly more likely to graduate from high school. These BHSEC graduates also enroll in and graduate from four-year colleges and universities at rates far higher than their peers: 97 percent of 2012 BHSEC Manhattan and Queens graduates enrolled in college, compared to 82 percent of their peers.
In addition, the researchers found that students and their families see significant financial benefit from transferring the tuition-free college credits they earn at BHSEC towards a four-year degree.
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Early college students are more likely to enroll in college than their peers are, with this effect being stronger for two-year college enrollment than four-year college enrollment. Early college students are also more likely to earn a college degree than their peers, with similar effects across demographic characteristics. Data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center show that from 2010 to 2016, 88 percent of students who participated in dual enrollment during high school had matriculated at a higher education institution by the time they were 20.
Studies have shown that these benefits are not simply a result of which students choose to pursue early college. A study from Columbia University’s Teachers College, based on dual enrollment programs in California, found that dual enrollment increased high school graduation rates, increased the likelihood of attending a four-year college, decreased the need to take remedial courses in college, and increased the accumulation of college credits for low-income students. A specific randomized trial found that advanced algebra dual enrollment courses led to better outcomes in math, reducing the need for remedial math classes and increasing enrollment in higher-level math courses. Additionally, students in these advanced algebra dual enrollment classes were more likely to matriculate at a four-year university, as opposed to a two-year college. Once in a college or university, dual enrollment students also perform similarly to or better than traditional students in terms of grades.
According to a literature review, most dual enrollment studies show that students who participated in dual enrollment generally perform better in college than those who do not participate. The literature also indicates that dual enrollment increases the likelihood of degree attainment. In Texas specifically, students who participated in dual enrollment were 1.77 times more likely to obtain a bachelor’s degree within six years compared to students who did not. Although fewer studies examine the effect of dual enrollment on time to degree, the existing studies suggest that dual enrollment does decrease the time needed to obtain a four-year degree.
The BHSEC Model: A Deep Dive
This case study aims to get under the hood of these impressive results by examining the structural and pedagogical elements of the BHSEC model. Several key lessons stand out. First, BHSEC’s experience shows that early college is a viable and valuable strategy not only for public and community colleges, but also for private, selective colleges. The success of the BHSEC model has shown that a rigorous liberal arts experience can be adapted effectively to an early college program and that selective colleges with a track record of success have a lot to offer in this field.
Second, hiring and training quality faculty is critical to success, although doing so may be challenging given the unique demands for teaching early college and the pool of applicants available. For BHSEC, faculty who have experience with both university teaching and K-12 teaching are ideal, although rare, which poses a challenge for school administrators. Another challenging but necessary component of establishing a successful early college is developing and maintaining a positive relationship with the local school district, to ensure that the valuable aspects of the model can thrive within the regulatory and cultural constraints of the district.
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Finally, there is a tension that must be balanced between the objective of expanding access to a high quality, liberal arts college education to lower-income young people and ensuring that students who enroll in early college are sufficiently prepared to thrive in that environment. BHSEC, which employs a rigorous multi-step process for admissions, believes that it is striking the right balance between preparation and access, and that rigor itself is a necessary challenge for students.
A National Network
The success of the BHSEC Manhattan campus has inspired the steady expansion of the BHSEC model. In response to the high demand from New York City public school students for the BHSEC Manhattan campus, Bard expanded to a second location in the city in 2008, this time in Queens. This was just the beginning of replicating the BHSEC model; over time, Bard gradually expanded to what is now a network of seven campuses, including Newark, New Jersey (founded 2011), Cleveland, Ohio (East and West campuses, founded 2017 and 2014, respectively), Baltimore, Maryland (founded 2015), and most recently, Washington D.C. Typically, initial interest in launching a new site comes from the district itself, which also serves as a useful indicator that district staff will be supportive of the working relationship. For example, conversations about the Newark site began with an invitation from then-mayor Cory Booker. Ideally, the district may also already have funders already interested in supporting the start-up of a new site.
As of fall 2017, the BHSECs enrolled almost 2,500 students. The largest student population is at BHSEC Queens, with 623 students. Cleveland East had the smallest population, with 58 students joining the initial cohort in 2017. Racial demographics of students vary by campus, often reflecting the demographics of the host city. For example, 62 percent of BHSEC Newark, 80 percent of BHSEC Baltimore students, and 100 percent of Cleveland East students are black. Across all campuses, 15 percent of students are Asian, 40 percent black, 17 percent Hispanic, and 26 percent white. Across all campuses, girls outnumber boys 63 percent to 37 percent, with similar percentages for individual campuses.
The BHSECs have a total teaching faculty of 227, with Manhattan and Queens employing 58 and 57 faculty, respectively, and Cleveland East employing six. Non-teaching staff can range from seven to 20, with traditional high school roles such as guidance counselor and principal, but also college-specific roles such as director of college transfer and dean of academic affairs. BHSEC faculty are highly qualified, with over two-thirds of faculty holding a terminal degree and many having prior college teaching experience. Faculty are less diverse than students: 10 percent of faculty members are Asian, 11 percent black, five percent Hispanic.
As of 2023, over 4,000 A.A. degrees have been awarded at BHSEC campuses. The schools have a 98% high school graduation rate and a 95% A.A. degree attainment rate. Many BHSEC graduates transfer their 60+ college credits to another college or university and finish their Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in two more years; others opt to study for three or four years in their subsequent institutions.
Campus and Student Life
BHSEC is housed in a pleasant red brick building constructed as an elementary school in 1915. It has high ceilings, huge windows with views of the East River, and sunny, basic classrooms equipped with wood-trimmed blackboards and oak cabinets. Students come from all five boroughs. There is a nice mix of kids from different races and income levels. About two-thirds of the students are girls.
There is no formal gymnasium but the school uses a turf field next to the building or nearby East River Park. Indoor gym classes take place in a multipurpose room or the converted auditorium. Teams include basketball, tennis, cross country, track and field, soccer and volleyball. Students may also participate in ultimate frisbee, the literary magazine, the philosophy club, STEP team and more.
Special Education Services
About 5 percent of students receive special education services. The school added team-teaching classes in the 9th grade for the first time in 2016 and is working to expand the special education services offered in the upper grades, according to the yearly plan.
Bard's Broader Commitment to Education
Bard College is deeply committed to expanding access to a liberal arts education beyond the confines of its residential campus. Bard has established satellite campuses in several countries that do not have a tradition of liberal arts education, including Kyrgyzstan, Hungary, Russia, and Palestine. The Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), which started in 2001, brings a liberal arts education to incarcerated individuals. BPI enrolls over 300 students, and upon graduation, these students all receive degrees from Bard College, with the same access to an extensive support network as alumni. The students enroll full-time and participate in the same curriculum as Bard’s residential students, and 97.5 percent of students who graduate from BPI never return to prison.
Recently, Bard has launched an additional endeavor, the Bard Microcolleges, to bring a liberal arts education to communities where students may have more difficulty accessing higher education. Each of Bard’s microcolleges was created in partnership with a community-based organization whose mission aligns with Bard’s philosophy. These partners provide credibility, familiarity with the local environment, and physical space for students to learn, while Bard provides the curriculum, faculty, academic advising, and tutoring. The programs focus on career development, with the idea that students will graduate with skills that will help them find employment. In addition, BHSEC is not Bard’s only early college offering. Bard also operates Early College Centers, which allow public high school students to take undergraduate college courses tuition-free. These students enroll part-time, unlike BHSEC students, and still attend their local high school.
The first early college established in the United States, Simon’s Rock, began in 1966 and became part of the Bard College network in 1979, spearheading Bard College’s work in early college. The motivation for Simon’s Rock was the belief that young people were prepared for a rigorous college curriculum at an earlier age. However, not all students who may have benefited from the private early college experience could afford it, so Bard brought this model to a public setting to reach a wider range of students, utilizing a large part of the early college model from Simon’s Rock. The New York City Department of Education approached Bard with interest, and in 2001, one of the first public early college high schools in the country opened. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has invested more than 4o million dollars in early college programs, provided some of the funding. Bard College president Leon Botstein is deeply committed to the early college movement, and having been in office since 1975, has provided continuity in Bard’s early college involvement. Botstein’s book, Jefferson’s Children, published before the first BHSEC opened, argues for a shorter high school period, with students beginning college at age 16.
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