FARMINGTON — RSU 9 directors voted unanimously Tuesday to move forward on developing a program that would allow students to graduate from high school with one year of college completed.

Students would take college courses concurrent with high school academics and career and technical courses and still complete high school in four years.

Monique Poulin, Mt. Blue High School principal and Glenn Kapiloff, director of Foster Regional Career and Technology Education Center, both based at Mt. Blue Campus, told the board they were interested in creating a Bridge Year Program to meet the needs of area students. The program would not be in place for the coming school year but could be in place the following year.

“I think this is what Mt. Blue Campus was built for,” Kapiloff said.

A the University of Maine System campus also would be involved.

The discussion followed a presentation on the program by Fred Woodman, director of the technical school United Technologies Center in Bangor, and Noelle O’Clair, guidance counselor at Herman High School, who are working together on the pilot program in Hermon.

Those schools are part of a collaboration that also includes Eastern Maine Community College in Bangor and the University of Maine.

The Bridge Year Program is an optional path for high school students that allows for the completion of an associate’s degree in half the time for a fraction of a cost, Woodman said.

The program was developed by a committee of education and business representatives to address concerns that only 26 percent of students complete an associate’s degree and 25 percent complete a four-year bachelor’s degree, Woodman said. Other concerns included low graduation rates, the number of students requiring remedial classes their first year of college and the average student loan debt of $27,000, he said.

“This program is for the student, not for anyone else,” he said.

Hermon High School has 14 students involved in the program, O’Clair said. After the sophomore year students take part in a summer career academy that includes business visits, team building and learning to be a student.

At the end of the junior year, they are a half year into an associates degree and, at the end of senior year, they are one year into an associate’s degree, she said.

The students in the program become a cohort and learn together. There is no room for an elective course in the Hermon project and the students are somewhat isolated because they stay in the same group, which contributed to a student leaving the program, O’Clair said.

But, after a few weeks, students enrolled in the program said they were glad they stayed, she said.

A goal of the program is not to take away from students’ high school experience, Woodman said.

“This program is really aimed at the middle students,” O’Clair said.

It gives students the help and support they need to complete high school and move into the college level, she said.

Students will be able to earn about 30 credits by the completion of the program.

Students in the 2012-13 program in Hermon pay $35 per credit hour, or $105 per course. “They will get their first year of college done for less than $1,000,” he said.

Students are required to pay for the courses and their parents are willing to do so, he said. There are scholarships available, but the students are required to pay, even if it is a dollar.

Students also hit their stumbling blocks and are kind of cushioned because they have support and will work through it, O’Clair said.

No additional teachers are needed, RSU 9 Superintendent Mike Cormier said. High school teachers teach the college courses under the guidance of university staff.

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