Early college high schools were initially the preserve of young academic stars from privileged backgrounds. The idea was to keep top students from being bored while making the transition from high school to university. But in recent years, hundreds of early college schools that target low-income students, mainly African-Americans and Latinos who are at risk of becoming dropouts, have sprouted across the country, according to the New York Times. And, the paper notes, the early evidence indicates they’re succeeding at keeping kids in school. During the four or five years the pupils attend the schools, they can earn up to two-years of college credits at no cost. The nation’s leader in this nascent movement is North Carolina, which has 70 early college high schools. Not only are most students enrolled in them doing well academically, their dropout rate is very low — a great result in a state where 38 percent of students leave traditional high schools without a diploma.

Other states, including California, New York and Texas are following North Carolina’s lead, the Times says. And about 200 schools nationwide are part of the Early College High School Initiative, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. A 2008 study of early college schools that had been open for at least four years found they had a graduation rate of 92 percent and that 40 percent of their students had earned at least one year of college credit. And that’s a pretty good head start for kids who might otherwise have been heading in the wrong direction.

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