Each weekday, dozens of 14- and 15-year-olds pack their book bags and head off to high school at the University of Akron.

If all goes well, they could be graduating in four years with a high school diploma and a college associate degree or credits toward a bachelor's degree, putting them far ahead of their peers.

They will report for the UA student newspaper, play in the college band and attend college classes with college students.

''The idea is to embed them on the campus,'' said Stan Silverman, dean of the UA Summit College, which oversees the program. ''The really exciting thing is that they may not have gone to college if it wasn't for this.''

The program at UA debuted this fall after years of seed work by the university and Akron Public Schools.

It is among nearly 190 programs nationwide, including seven others in Ohio, that were launched with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other partners.

These are nontraditional high schools that serve a targeted audience: average to good students from lower-income, often minority families who would be the first in their families to go to college.

Many of the students may be in danger of dropping out of high school: Only about 40 percent of African-American youths graduate from high school in Ohio, the second-lowest rate in the nation, according to the Cincinnati-based KnowledgeWorks Foundation, which distributes the Gates' money.

''Our programs are specific to students who are underrepresented in higher education,'' said Andrea Mulkey, who manages the Early College program at KnowledgeWorks.

Still, expectations also are high.

Tom Forbes, director of the Akron program, said students will be expected to maintain a 93 percent attendance rate, get a C or better in all courses, and complete all district and state requirements for high school graduation.

With help from counselors, they will be expected to lay out a high school and college curriculum at the tender age of 15 or so.

''That is one of the drawbacks, that you have to make early decisions,'' he said.

As they progress through their four years in Early College, they will be expected to gradually add more college courses, earning credit for high school and college work at the same time.

In this first semester, they are taking a physical education course apart from other UA students. Next semester, they will take phys ed and a computer class with regular university students.

By their senior year, ''I would be disappointed if they weren't spending most of their time in college,'' said Forbes.

He confidently expects all 100 students in this first class with the exception of those who move away to earn up to 60 college credits by the time they graduate in 2011.

Parental support

Part of the reason for his optimism is that the students have the support of their parents, who have agreed to partner with the program.

''Our kids learned the hard way from us,'' said Deanna Damron, an office manager of a fence company whose son, Ryan, is in Early College and already talks of being a physician. ''We were young, married with three little kids. It's pretty important to me that they go the college route.''

Many of the students said their parents screamed with delight when the students were admitted, and bragged relentlessly at work, at the dentist's office and to friends.

Other programs in Ohio

But other programs require parents' cooperation, too, and many of those students don't stick it out.

The Youngstown State program has lost 35 students 45 percent of the 78 it started with three years ago.

Alison Harmon, associate dean of the YSU College of Education, evaluated the program for the Early College, and she attributed the decline to programming flaws, not students.

She has recommended that larger groups of students take college courses together: ''That's the way they learn,'' she said.

In the past, only three Early College students could be in a traditional YSU class at the same time.

The Dayton Early College Academy, one of the oldest nationwide and the oldest in Ohio, lost many of the 95 students its inaugural class started with in 2003.

Tom Lasley, dean of the School of Education and Allied Professions at the University of Dayton, the program's college partner, said 49 students moved, transferred to more traditional high schools either for the social life or because they didn't want to do the work that Early College demanded, decided not to pursue a college degree, or left high school entirely. Some elected to take a fifth year of high school to scoop up more college credits.

Although only 39 students graduated last spring, all of those went to college, seven with both a diploma and an associate's degree. Many received college scholarships.

He called the program a ''qualified success.'' There are ''clearly lots of things yet to do before we can say that we have really succeeded,'' he said.

Not yet convinced

Still, no matter how many students graduate, the programs may be expensive to operate and hard to duplicate, said Michael Kirst, a professor emeritus at Stanford University who studies education reform.

''Are these boutique demonstration projects that cannot be scaled into anything bigger?'' Kirst asked. ''I want to see projects replicated more broadly.''

At Dayton, the per-pupil cost has dropped from $14,000 the first year to a little less than $10,000 this year, Lasley said. The typical per-student cost at an Ohio high school is about $8,750.

At UA, the program will cost $630,000, including in-kind payments, this year, said Silverman, dean of Summit College.

Because some costs are one-time expenses, he couldn't extrapolate a per-student cost, but he will work on that this year.

Akron students' start

The Akron students were adjusting to their new world this week. Their social life was high on their list. Their new school has school colors blue and gold, like UA's but no clubs (yet), no sports teams, no pep rallies and no library. Their parents must ferry them to school and back; there are no buses.

Vietnamese-born Iu Tu tried four times to climb the rock wall at UA's Recreation and Wellness Center, but was turned away each time by a ''dude'' because details of the teens' participation had yet to be worked out.

Jermaine Dukes is intent on trying out for the basketball team at his home high school, Firestone. Other students are clamoring to join some type of choir at UA, where they will be welcome to take part in most activities sororities and fraternities excluded.

Wherever the students go in the years ahead, they will be watched. An agency that partners with the Gates Foundation has set up a system to track them through high school and beyond to see if this experiment works and whether the students succeed.