Some teenagers could soon earn a college degree for free while working toward their high school diploma.
Designed to expand college access and opportunities for local students, the first and only “middle college” high school in the Coachella Valley will launch in 2027-28 through a partnership between Palm Springs Unified School District and College of the Desert.
It will join an estimated 17 middle college high schools statewide as of 2021, including two others in Riverside County.
The middle college — essentially an alternative high school — is expected to open alongside COD’s long-awaited Palm Springs campus. Desert Learning Academy, a short walk away from the community college, will officially serve as students’ home school.
“This is an opportunity for students to truly be college students while still having the support system of their high school,” said Deanna Keuilian, PSUSD’s director of secondary curriculum and instruction.
The district began publicly discussing the middle college in the spring as an addition to Desert Learning Academy, a hybrid school for K-12 students pursuing independent study or credit recovery. PSUSD has said it envisions the school as a “career innovation center,” preparing students for careers in aviation, information technology, sports medicine and other skilled trades.
Why Palm Springs Unified is expanding college access
First developed in New York City in 1974 to address high school dropout rates, middle college high schools bring school districts and community colleges together to serve students who may benefit from additional support or a nontraditional high school experience. It’s an initiative that reached California in 1988.
Earning college credit through a middle college could play a role in “strengthening scholars’ college and career readiness,” PSUSD Superintendent Marcus Funchess said.
The latest available state data show that less than half of the district’s 2025 graduates — 48.1% — were considered “prepared” for success after high school.
Students can demonstrate college and career readiness, for example, through their grades in college-level classes or their Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exam scores. But those programs, Keuilian said, tend to appeal to students with an “intrinsic motivation.”
As no one single path works for every student, she added, the middle college will offer another “entry point” into college-level work by allowing them to “have a voice in their schedule.”
Dual enrollment has expanded rapidly across California, with nearly 165,000 students — about one-third of the state’s class of 2025 — taking at least one college course while in high school, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Locally, all three K-12 districts — Palm Springs Unified, Coachella Valley Unified and Desert Sands Unified — have partnered with COD to offer dual enrollment courses taught by their high school teachers. However, teachers are generally required to hold a master’s degree in the subject they teach, which can limit the range of dual enrollment courses that districts can offer.
But under the middle college high school model, students will have a wider selection of classes at COD — earning credits toward a degree without the price tag they would face at a four-year university.
How Palm Springs middle college will support students
Students’ schedules could vary based on the college courses they choose, with some potentially meeting during the school day and others in the evening.
Counselors will help students select classes at COD’s Palm Springs campus in fields such as hospitality, healthcare, digital media and culinary arts, as well as other pathways tied to the region’s workforce needs, said Kim Ballard, the middle college’s inaugural principal.
Depending on the courses they take at COD, students could earn an associate degree or certificate, or even get a head start on completing the general education classes required for a bachelor’s degree at University of California or California State University campuses.
From their first day, students will be considered COD students and issued college ID cards, along with access to tutoring, research support from the librarians, as well as personal, academic and career counseling. Through the college’s career services, they can get help building their resumes, preparing for interviews and finding job opportunities.
Students facing food and housing insecurity will be able to lean on COD’s food pantry and basic needs center, which Amanda Phillips, the college’s vice president of student services, said “is an important part of supporting their academic success.”
They can join clubs and take part in leadership activities, cultural events and other campus programs.
“The college is also about discovering who you are,” Phillips said.
Making college feel like a ‘birthright’
The middle college’s first cohort will carry a larger promise: that access to higher education can change not only a student’s future but a family’s trajectory for generations.
For that change to take hold, said Val Martinez Garcia, COD’s superintendent/president, college must be part of the community students already call home, “regardless of their backgrounds, their ZIP codes or their circumstance.”
“One day, there will be students who will never know what it’s like not to know Palm Springs without a college campus,” Martinez Garcia said. “Our students will simply assume that college has always been a part of this community. They will grow up believing that higher education belongs to them because it has always been within their reach.”
When a college is part of the neighborhood, students are more likely to see higher education as part of their future, said Ron Oden, COD’s board president and a former mayor of Palm Springs. By dismantling the walls between high school and college, students’ “vocabulary of their future,” he said, can shift from “if I go to college” to “when I graduate.”
“The true legacy,” Oden said, “will be when a child grows up and looks at these buildings — and taking it entirely for granted that a world-class college education is their birthright.”
Jennifer Cortez covers education and breaking news in the Coachella Valley. Reach her at jennifer.cortez@desertsun.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Springs-area high schoolers could graduate with a college degree
Reporting by Jennifer Cortez, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jennifer Cortez, Palm Springs Desert Sun | USA TODAY Network
