GREENFIELD — Now that Greenfield Community College has earned its Early College Designation from a board of state officials, it will partner with Hadley’s Hopkins Academy to offer new opportunities for young students to explore the impact and value of a college education.
With the goal of reducing education equity gaps across the state, Early College programs are aimed at increasing college completion rates among students of color, first-generation college students and students from low-income backgrounds, according to a GCC press release. Schools receive their designation from a joint committee that includes members from the Board of Higher Education and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
As early as middle school, participating students receive the opportunity to better understand the college trajectory, make informed decisions about their academic future and gain exposure to a variety of career opportunities, the release states.
“This program gives students the opportunity to be thinking about their future and how school connects with their career from a much younger age than has traditionally been done,” said Anna Berry, GCC’s chief student affairs officer. “Coming up with a plan and identifying who this program can serve was an incredibly collaborative process with the Hadley public schools.”
According to the release, 7 percent of students at Hopkins Academy, which serves middle and high schoolers, are enrolled in GCC’s Early College Program so far.
Anne McKenzie, superintendent of Hadley Public Schools, said the reason Hopkins Academy was so interested in working with GCC is that both schools are invested in equity.
“At GCC, diversity and inclusion doesn’t just guide the work — it is the work,” she said. “They have a clear understanding that in the absence of that work, nothing else really matters.”
Berry said she hopes the Early College Program allows more youths to view a college education as something that is possible for them.
“What I hope to come out of this,” she said, “is that more young people will see a college education as within their grasp regardless of whether they are the first in their family to go to college or how their early high school years have gone — that they will see the connection education has to more expansive opportunities in their adult lives.”
The Early College Joint Committee granted the first Early College designations in 2018. According to the release, the inaugural class of 12th-grade participants was majority Black and Latino — students for whom college enrollment and completion disparities are especially high and persistent — and enrolled in college at a rate that was 20 percentage higher than their state peers.