Collegiate high school opens in Harlingen

UTRGV, in collaboration with the City of Harlingen and Harlingen Consolidated Independent School District, is giving students the opportunity to engage in the college experience and earn at least 42 college credit hours upon graduating through UTRGV Harlingen Collegiate High School. 

Students first walked on campus Oct. 12 and a ribbon-cutting ceremony took place on Nov. 15 at the facility.

It was formerly known as Early College High School, Harlingen’s first specialty campus when it first opened in 2007 on Pecan Street, according to Michael Aldape, director of dual enrollment at UTRGV.  

 “To be an early college high school there is a state mandated blueprint that high schools have to follow in order to qualify and be designated as a true early college high school,” Aldape said. “This new vision with the campus is a little bit different from that, and, so, while it’s no longer a designated early college high school, we’re still offering students a very similar experience. So, with that opportunity and the change that we’ve made and the structure, we’ve been able to rethink what all of this looks like, and that was a good opportunity to change the name to something that fit a little bit more of what we’re doing.”

The facility was first announced Feb. 28, 2019. 

“The City of Harlingen gifted 30.54 acres of vacant land to UTRGV for construction of the future campus, which will be located near the northeast corner of Camelot Drive and Hale Street,” according to a UTRGV Newsroom article published Feb. 28, 2019.

UTRGV Harlingen Collegiate High School is a ninth-through-12th-grade campus and, beginning in the 11th grade, students start taking only UTRGV courses to satisfy their high school graduation requirements. 

“So, while students are taking our courses to become core complete, they’re also working towards earning their high school graduation requirements by the time that they’ve finished those two years,” Aldape said. 

Brianna Vela Garcia, director of media and public relations for the school district, said UTRGV and the district each invested $7 million into the construction of the new facility. 

In addition to college credits, students can choose a college career pathway in computer science, engineering or education. 

Aldape said each student’s pathway and total number of hours they complete might look a little different from each other. 

“And then we have other courses articulated that will increase that number a little bit,” he said. “So, at minimum, we’re looking at 42 to 47 hours in addition to pathway courses. So, most will end up getting towards within that window.”

Vela Garcia said the school is application based. Students do not have to live in Harlingen to attend, as it is an open-enrollment school district. 

“So, we do open our applications to all of our schools Valleywide, and that works for the school as well,” she said. “So, when students in eighth grade choose to begin their high school career at Collegiate High School, they can go online to our HCISD.org website and fill out the applications when we open them in the spring.”

 Each class at UTRGV Harlingen Collegiate High school is capped at 100 students each, for a max student population of 400, which encourages a small learning community to support educational success, according to a news release sent by the district. 

Students can still participate in extracurricular activities like comprehensive high schools, Vela Garcia said. In addition to being focused on achieving their college goals, students can also participate in the arts and athletics.

During the Nov. 15 ribbon-cutting ceremony, UTRGV President Guy Bailey said the City of Harlingen and school district have been partners like no others.

“I’ve been to a lot of places and a lot of universities,” Bailey said. “We’ve never had better partners. So, thank you to the school district … for all your leadership. You’ve really done a terrific job. You know, this is a great facility for Harlingen. It’s great for the Rio Grande Valley. There’s nothing like this in the state of Texas. There’s nothing like this in the UT System.” 

He said this facility is to help students be successful.

“Remember you’re going to graduate with at least two years of college credits at no expense to you,” Bailey said. “When you come to UTRGV we are fully committed to you graduating with minimal debt and with most success. … We want you to graduate, we want you to stay here in the Valley. … This is a great place to live. We couldn’t do this, we couldn’t provide this kind of education without partners.”