The Bard Early Colleges (BEC) are founded on the belief that, for many young people, college can and should start at an earlier age. Bard Early College's simple idea - to begin serious college study in place of the traditional 11th and 12th grades, at no cost to students or families - has had an extraordinary impact on young people and on education innovation and equity in America. The Bard Early Colleges offer a truly unique home for young people's intellectual ambition: as both tuition-free, branch campuses of Bard College and public high schools, they award a high school diploma and a Bard College Associate in Arts degree (and 60 transferable credits) by the end of the 12th grade. Students are taught by college faculty in undergraduate, seminar classes, all deeply rooted in the liberal arts and sciences, in Bard College's commitment to excellence in teaching, and in Bard's mission as a private college in the public interest. Now entering its third decade, the Bard Early College network enrolls over 3,700 young people in campuses in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and Hudson, New York; Newark, New Jersey; New Orleans, Louisiana; Cleveland, Ohio; Baltimore, Maryland; and Washington, D.C.