Here's what Durfee students told Gov. Baker about the school's early college program

FALL RIVER — Students at B.M.C. Durfee High School told Governor Charlie Baker how their school’s early college program helped them earn free college credits and take ownership over their future at a roundtable with him and other state officials at the high school on Monday.

“Really, early college has been a game changer for Fall River and our schools,” said Interim Superintendent of Schools Maria Pontes.

Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito, Massachusetts Secretary of Education James Peyser, Mayor Paul Coogan, and Durfee principal Matt Desmarais took part in the discussion along with Pontes, Baker and 11 Durfee students.

Unlike dual enrollment college classes, which typically happen in the evenings after high school students have finished their high school classes, early college classes happen during the day as part of the students’ normal schedule.

Durfee students currently have the option to take early college classes at Bristol Community College and Bridgewater State University.

The high school is planning to roll out an early college pilot program with UMass Dartmouth next year, which would make them the first high school in the state to offer an early college program with three different colleges.

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Durfee is the only school on the SouthCoast to offer an early college program officially designated by the state, although New Bedford High School hopes to launch a similar program soon.

Carlos Marcano, a Durfee senior, said he initially was hesitant about the early college program and planned instead to take AP classes. He worried at first that college classes would be too big of a commitment, but is glad he took the plunge, he said.

Now, he’s taken college classes on topics like English, marketing, journalism and psychology. He said he appreciated the chance to earn free college credits, to bond with other Durfee students in the early college program and to form relationships with college staff. Next year, he’ll attend Bridgewater full time as a marketing major.

“With long-term commitment comes long-term benefits,” he said.

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Several students said their participation in the program is what convinced them to plan to attend college after finishing high school. Ashtosh Bhandari, a senior enrolled in the Bristol program, said he moved to the U.S. last year.

“To be frank, I didn’t think college would be within my reach,” he said.

He also weighed the possibility of attending college after a gap year. But when a counselor at Durfee pointed him toward the early college program, he found a new perspective. He recently was accepted to Boston University.

The early college program was how he made his first two friends in the U.S., Bhandari said.

“It really helped me connect with people,” he said.

Durfee students enrolled in the program also have extra supports built into their curriculum to help them navigate the next experience of taking college classes, with lessons on things like how to read a college syllabus and how to communicate with a professor.

Lourraine Dayao, a senior who is taking classes at Bristol through the early college program, said the support makes a big difference compared to taking dual enrollment classes, which she did as a freshman and sophomore. Because most of their classes are made up entirely of early college students from Durfee, professors don’t assume they know how to do things like create AP citations.

“There’s a lot more support and it’s a lot more tailored to high school students,” she said.

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Baker praised the program as a way for students to test whether they want to attend college, and to lessen the amount of student debt they might otherwise have to take on. He said he wants next year’s state budget to include a sizable amount of funding for early college programs. Currently, about 50 of the state’s more than 260 public high schools runs an early college program.

“If it were up to me, this thing would be available at every school in Massachusetts,” he told the students. “You’re basically helping us believe in a program that the lieutenant governor and the secretary of education and I were already pretty sold on.”

Audrey Cooney can be reached at acooney@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Herald News today.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Baker learns Durfee students praise early college program