On the Fast Track

EARLY COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOLS, WHICH AIM TO SERVE STUDENTS WHO ARE MINORITIES, enable participants to earn an associate’s degree during high school by taking challenging dual-credit classes. By completing up to 60 college credit hours during high school, these students can potentially save two years of tuition — and time — when they later enroll in a four-year university.

While acknowledging the benefits of early college high school programs, two TCU education professors examined the social cost.

“A lot of the passion behind our research is wanting better opportunities and experiences for minoritized students,” said Stephanie Cuellar, assistant professor of higher education leadership. “Our intention is to just improve experiences and outcomes for students.”

In a study published in 2024 in the Journal of Advanced Academics, co-authors Cuellar and Taryn Ozuna Allen, associate professor of higher education leadership, look beyond classroom achievement to ask how these programs support or hinder students’ social development.

“Success in college requires both social and academic skills,” said Barbara Tobolowsky, professor emeritus in educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Texas at Arlington. “Many studies focus on academic data, but that only tells part of the story.”

RESEARCH AND FINDINGS

“Too often, it seems, higher education researchers focus only on the statistics of success or lack of success. These researchers look beyond the numbers and study the student experience.”
Barbara Tobolowsky

In August 2019, Allen brought the dataset to TCU and has since co-authored five articles exploring the findings.

“To be able to focus on the social aspect … is a unique contribution, something I’m proud of,” said Allen, who won the TCU Deans’ Award for Research and Creativity in 2024.

Some early college high school programs are embedded in a community high school, while others are stand-alone campuses focused primarily on academics. In both cases, dual-credit classes might be offered on-site, online or at a nearby community college.

In interviews, several early college high school graduates described their cohort as like family. But students who traveled to community colleges for classes tended to interact only with one another.

“I would see who was in my high school and the dual-credit classes, and I would just go with them,” said Lyla, a student quoted in the study. “I never really engaged with other college students.”

“There is a fix,” Cuellar said. “In the classroom, instructors can be grouping early college high school with the traditional community college students and ensuring that they’re communicating and talking.”

IMPORTANCE OF EXTRACURRICULARS

Another finding centered on “the limited infrastructure and time dedicated to developing students’ interpersonal and social skills.” The researchers found that a lack of extracurricular involvement in high school sometimes carries over to university life.

Joy, a first-generation college student and nursing major, told researchers that early college helped her become more comfortable interacting with older students. But she also expressed that she “kind of regretted” not having opportunities in the arts.

“I feel like maybe I isolate myself a lot [in college] just to focus on my academics,” Joy said. “I guess that’s kind of what my early college did to me.”

“Mary, a Black education major, shared that the emphasis on academics left her uncertain of her interests,” Cuellar and Allen write. “This resulted in her having a difficult time selecting organizations to join in college.”

The authors suggest that establishing a better balance in early college high schools “could promote these students’ personal and academic success while equipping them with the skills necessary (e.g., time management, interpersonal skills, leadership roles) to experience college holistically.”

“They are grappling with a lot,” Allen said, “and so to have those outlets where they can make friends, build their leadership skills, have a place to vent and sort of let their hair down and be a teenager would really be beneficial.”

The authors also recommend that early college high schools strengthen partnerships with four-year institutions to offer special orientation programs and smooth the transition for students.

“As a faculty member, we don’t know that this person went to early college high school and they’re actually new to our campus,” Cuellar said. “We’re seeing that you’re a junior, and so we’re expecting you to write like a junior, to email us like a junior, to use office hours as if you’ve been here.”

ADVOCATING THROUGH SCHOLARSHIP

The professors shared their research at the Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education and at national education conferences.

“Too often, it seems, higher education researchers focus only on the statistics of success or lack of success,” Tobolowsky said. “These researchers look beyond the numbers and study the student experience.”

The authors are advocating for changes that could improve social outcomes for early college high school students — and also for more transparency about the programs, such as the reality that some college credit hours might not transfer to the student’s degree plan.

“They’re often first-generation college students, and they as a family are navigating this whole process blindly in many ways … relying on administrators, staff to guide them and help them make the most informed decision for their child,” Allen said of parents. “And if we don’t tell the whole picture, then we’re not really helping.”

Stephanie Cuellar, left, was Taryn Ozuna Allen’s doctoral student. The two are now faculty colleagues at TCU’s College of Education. Photo by Ralph Lauer

In 2019, on her first day as a PhD student at TCU, Stephanie Cuellar walked into a class on minority-serving institutions taught by Taryn Ozuna Allen, associate professor of higher education leadership.

Cuellar, a first-generation college student, was inspired to see Allen, with whom she shares research interests and a Mexican American heritage, at the front of the classroom. As Cuellar worked toward a doctorate in higher education leadership (which she earned in 2022), Allen became her mentor. Cuellar joined Allen’s writing team, launching publication projects that continued into her two-year postdoctoral fellowship in higher education at TCU. During that time, Cuellar built a research focus on college readiness, access and transitions for minorities.

“She’s got a strong work ethic,” Allen said. “She also has this diversity-equity lens, as we’re looking at data, to bring light to those structural barriers that persist.” Allen’s team analyzed and explored a dataset collected about early college high school programs. The study’s personal interviews made an impression on Cuellar, who was used to looking at numbers.

“She really introduced me to qualitative research. I was trained [in] quantitative methodology in my master’s program. … Even in my dissertation research, I kept wondering, why did I get some of these findings,” Cuellar said, “and now I’m actually doing qualitative research on my dissertation topic to get more of that why.”

Allen, Cuellar and Maria Yareli Delgado published a 2023 study in the Journal of the First Year Experience and Students in Transition and a 2024 practice brief in the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. From the same authors, plus Elsa Carmargo, is a look at early college high school students’ cultural and social sacrifices, published in The Urban Review in 2024; coming soon is the team’s study of such students’ academic and interpersonal challenges, slated for Community College Review.

With Allen’s encouragement, Cuellar looked at the early college high school data through a social lens, taking lead authorship on a study examining the personal challenges faced by early college high school graduates when they transitioned to four-year colleges. It was published in 2024 in the Journal of Advanced Academics.

In August 2024, Cuellar began her new position as assistant professor of higher education at TCU, joining Allen on the faculty and continuing their work together.