PSRC Early College at RCC

PSRC Early College at RCC is a small public high school serving 274 students in grades 9–12 on the Robeson Community College campus in Lumberton, NC. It belongs to Public Schools of Robeson County, a district in the bottom quarter of North Carolina — yet this school ranks 37th out of 662 high schools statewide (94th percentile) and has been in the top 6% for five consecutive years. The contrast with nearby schools is striking: Lumberton Senior High, Purnell Swett High, Red Springs High, Fairmont High, and Saint Pauls High all rank between the 28th and 40th percentiles. Even Gray's Creek High, in the Cumberland County Schools district, sits at only the 46th percentile.

End-of-Course exams tell the same story. In 2025–2026, 96.3% of PSRC Early College students were proficient in Biology, 98.8% in English II, 85.7% in Math I, and 97.6% in Math III. Those proficiency rates run 40 to 60 percentage points higher than the traditional high schools in this district. The closest regional comparison, Bladen Early College in Bladen County Schools, ranks 87th statewide — strong, but still far behind. Notably, PSRC Early College achieves these results while spending less per student ($8,192) and using larger average class sizes than most nearby high schools.

The school's academic strength also holds across different groups of students. Male students rank 14th statewide, Hispanic students rank 24th, and low-income students rank 37th — all in the 94th to 98th percentile. It is worth noting that about 41% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, while nearly all students at the surrounding traditional high schools do (over 98%). That makes PSRC Early College different from a typical neighborhood school, since enrollment involves a district-wide early-college application. Still, the strong results for lower-income students point to an intentional model that is working — and this school is the clearest academic success story in its district.