When most high school juniors are navigating pep rallies and prom planning, students in Madison College’s STEM Academy are sitting in college classrooms, earning credits that could follow them all the way to MIT. Since launching in 2018 with 26 students from two Madison high schools, the dual enrollment program has grown to roughly 300 students across six school districts and 12 high schools — and a growing partnership with Maydm is now adding paid internships to the mix.
Lazaro Enriquez, who leads the program, said the STEM Academy offers something fundamentally different from AP courses. Students don’t just study college-level material — they attend Madison College full time starting in 11th grade, taking real college courses alongside traditional students. Their credits count toward both high school graduation and a college transcript.
“What better way to showcase to a university and a college that you’re prepared for college than by saying, I already done two years of college as a high school student?” Enriquez said.
The numbers back that up. Students are averaging close to 50 college credits by the time they graduate high school, and some finish with an associate’s degree at 18. Of the 126 students who completed the program last spring, about 55 reported they were heading to UW-Madison. Others have gone on to schools across the UW System, private universities, and institutions including MIT and Stanford.
Even when credits don’t transfer perfectly, the experience pays off. Enriquez said he knows former STEM Academy students who finished engineering programs at four-year universities in three years instead of five. And students who arrive at a university with 60-plus credits have the flexibility to explore — taking on internships, research opportunities, or coursework outside their major without falling behind.
How the program works
Students apply during 10th grade through their participating school district. The application process includes a formal application, an interview, and a review of GPA and progress toward graduation. Applications typically open in November and close around January or February, depending on the district. The participating districts are Madison Metropolitan, Verona, Sun Prairie, Lodi, Poynette, and Marshall.
Each school district funds its students’ seats in the program, so there is no tuition cost to families. Students also receive a daily meal allowance loaded onto their Madison College student card, regardless of income. Classes are scheduled between 8:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. so students can return to their high schools for extracurriculars and athletics.
The transition from high school to a college campus is a big adjustment, and the program is designed to ease it. Every student is assigned an advisor at a 50-to-1 ratio, and first-semester students take cohort classes with other STEM Academy peers before gradually mixing into courses with traditional college students.
“It takes a lot of courage for students,” Enriquez said. “They’re leaving the comforts, for lack of a better term, of their high school. They’re taking on this whole new path that is rigorous, not only academically, but you have to navigate the whole college environment.”
Reaching students who need it most
The STEM Academy is open to all students, but its impact is especially significant for those from underrepresented backgrounds. About half of the program’s students qualify for free or reduced lunch, and roughly half are first-generation college students, meaning neither parent holds a four-year degree from a U.S. institution. The program also runs about 60-40 female to male.
Carlos Lozano, an advisor on the STEM Academy team, said the program’s design reflects a belief that students don’t need perfect grades to succeed — they need maturity and the willingness to work through challenges. The minimum GPA for entry is 2.25.
“At the end of the day, we want a student that’s mature enough to be able to understand the process and to go through the process and to work with us within that process,” Lozano said. “We’ve had GPAs all across. But at the end of the day, we know that if a student struggles, maybe they struggled, but they get out of it.”
For low-income and first-generation students, the financial implications are enormous. Two years of tuition-free college credit means significantly less debt if they go on to a four-year university. And for students who choose to enter the workforce directly, they leave with a credential and a transcript already in hand.
“It’s a game changer,” Enriquez said, “especially with just the cost savings alone, and families getting two years or a significant amount of credits paid for by the school districts.”
From classroom to career: the Maydm partnership
In recent years, the STEM Academy has added another dimension to the experience: paid summer internships through a partnership with Maydm, a local workforce development organization. The partnership, now in its third or fourth year, places students in real jobs at tech companies, banks, government offices, and other organizations across Dane County.
Last summer, about 19 STEM Academy students were placed in internships. This cycle, Lozano said, nearly 40 students have expressed interest. Students fill out an interest form, attend a kickoff session run by Maydm, and then go through a formal application and interview process before being placed.
“Our program is definitely focusing on strictly the academic piece, but with that, we want students to have good opportunities to explore different types of careers,” Lozano said. “How cool is it for our students to be able to achieve, possibly an associate’s, a two-year degree, have work experience — they can get a job at 40 to 60 thousand dollars a year already with that two-year credential plus work experience.”
Maydm also builds community among the interns, bringing them together for programming throughout the summer rather than simply sending them off to their placements. Enriquez said the internships help students discover what they like — and sometimes what they don’t.
“It benefits the students exponentially, just in being able to experience the professions that they’re potentially going into,” Enriquez said. “Not just important for them to realize the things that they like, but also the things maybe they thought were something and turned out to be something different.”
The companies benefit, too. Lozano said the internships serve as a recruitment pipeline while also demonstrating a commitment to the community. “When you read about retention and recruitment, I think that’s huge for companies,” he said. “At the end of the day, they don’t need to do it, but they do it because they care and they want to give back to the community.”
Expanding the model
Madison College has also launched senior-year academies with the Madison School District, modeled after the STEM Academy but designed for students who apply as juniors and attend full time during their senior year. Those programs focus on biotech, biomedical, information technology, and education, with a “running start” option for students interested in other technical fields. Students in the senior-year track can earn up to 30 credits.
Enriquez encouraged any student interested in earning college credit in high school to talk to their school counselor about available options, whether through the STEM Academy, the senior-year academies, or Madison College’s Start College Now program.
For Lozano, the program’s success is best measured by what comes after. “When they leave, they’re letting us know about their successes, and that’s the stuff we really love to enjoy,” he said. “It’s the fruit of your labor. You can’t express that feeling when someone says, I just graduated from college two years later, now I got a job, or they’re at their dream school, and that’s all because the entire community came together to allow that student to have that opportunity.”
Families interested in the STEM Academy can contact Madison College’s Early College Programs office at [email protected] or 608-243-4595.
