Building on a growing literature showing that early college high schools substantially improve educational outcomes, we investigate possible spillover impacts of this intervention on civic outcomes in North Carolina, which has early colleges in most of its 100 counties. We present both lottery and observational impacts on voting and criminal convictions. Our results suggest a modest increase in voting during early adulthood of about 4–5 percent, though lottery estimates do not rule out a null effect. For criminal convictions, lottery estimates are imprecise due to very low conviction rates, but observational evidence suggests a moderate decrease in convictions. We additionally identify stronger impacts on voting and conviction outcomes for key student subgroups, particularly black males and economically-disadvantaged white students. These results suggest that scaling up the early college program can improve youth civic outcomes and help to close key civic and political participation gaps.

在越来越多的文献表明早期大学高中显着改善教育成果的基础上，我们调查了这种干预对北卡罗来纳州公民成果的可能溢出影响，该州在其 100 个县中的大多数都设有早期大学。我们提出了彩票和观察对投票和刑事定罪的影响。我们的结果表明，成年早期的投票适度增加了约 4-5%，尽管彩票估计不排除无效效应。对于刑事定罪，由于定罪率非常低，彩票估计不准确，但观察证据表明定罪率适度下降。我们还确定了对关键学生子群体的投票和定罪结果的更大影响，特别是黑人男性和经济上处于不利地位的白人学生。