Available to junior and senior high school students, 101 attended classes on the Community College’s campuses in 2023

Yavapai Community College has been experimenting with developing an Early College Academy (ECA). The ECA model involves high school students attending classes at one of Yavapai Community College’s campuses. The program allows high school students to register concurrently for college classes that count toward their high school graduation requirements. A high school staff member is housed on the appropriate Yavapai Community College campus to support and monitor student progress daily.

A student’s high school district pays for tuition and books. Students in the Academy take from three to five courses on a campus each semester and earn on average 24 college credits each year. Initially, the Academy was open only to senior high school students. However, in 2023, the Community College expanded the program to include junior high school students.

The Academy began with students from Prescott High School. It has now been expanded to include students from Mingus Union High School in Cottonwood and Bradshaw Mountain High School in Prescott Valley. In 2023 there were 101 total students participating from all three schools, who took an average of 11 credits per semester. This made them almost full-time college students.

Students in the fall semester of 2023 had a 3.53 grade point average. One ECA student graduated in spring 2024 with an associate degree, while three students completed the AGEC certificates. The Arizona General Education Curriculum (AGEC) is composed of 35 to 37 credit hours of lower-division general education coursework in which a student may prepare for transfer to another college or university.