CPS college enrollment rate increases

College enrollment goes up for the 4th year in a row

African-American students closing gap on national average; Latino students increasing more than four times faster than national pace.

May 26, 2009

African-American and Latino students are leading the way in increasing the number of Chicago Public Schools students who are going on to college, Mayor Richard M. Daley and CPS officials announced Tuesday in releasing the district’s latest college enrollment figures.

Rising for the fourth year in a row, the college enrollment rate of CPS high school graduates now stands at 52.5 percent, up from 50 percent the year before, increasing at a rate that continues to outpace the nation as a whole.

“This is very encouraging news because we’ve worked hard over the past several years to lift students’ expectations, to help them see high school graduation not as an end, but as the first step toward a successful career in their chosen field,” Daley said in a news conference held at the School of Entrepreneurship, 7627 S. Constance Ave.

“We have achieved this progress in large part by increasing the number and variety of high-quality education options that are available in neighborhoods throughout the city,” he said.

The Mayor pointed out that starting with the Class of 2004, CPS has been tracking how many of its graduates enrolled in college. That year, 43.5 percent of its former students enrolled in a post-secondary institution. The 9-point CPS increase since then far outpaces the national increase of 1.9.

Examining the numbers in detail shows more good news, especially concerning Latino and African American students, who in the past have been the most under-represented groups going on to college, Daley said.

In 2004, slightly more than 34 percent of Latino students were going on to college. For the Class of 2008, this number has climbed to more than 43 percent.

This increase is being led by male Latino students, whose post-secondary enrollment has increased 10.6 percent since 2004. These young men have pushed the overall Latino rate up almost 9 percentage points since 2004, compared with the national increase in that time of less than 2 percentage points.

Also in 2004, less than 43 percent of CPS African-American students were going on to college -- 18 percentage points behind black students in the rest of the country.

For the CPS Class of 2008, 53.7 percent of African-American graduates are going to college -- so they have almost closed the gap with their peers across the nation, who are at 54.9 percent. Since 2004, CPS African-American females have showed an 11.1 point increase and African-American males a 10.6 point increase.

As the CPS graduating class of 2008 increased its college-enrollment rate by 2.5 percentage points over the previous year, the enrollment rate for the nation as a whole went up by only 1.4 percent, from 67.2 percent to 68.6 percent.

In addition, the CPS rate increased in all Grade Point Average categories and across the range of ACT scores.

“These increases are largely due to the rise in the number of Advanced Placement courses in more neighborhood schools,’’ said CPS Chief Executive Officer Ron Huberman. “These are the kind of programs that provide the academic rigor that prepare our students to be successful in college. We want to make it clear to our students that college is not just for straight-A students or those with the highest test scores. A college education is increasingly more important for a broad range of careers.”

The most recent statistics also show that the percentage of students attending college full-time now stands at 77.4 percent — an increase of 6.1 percentage points from 2007. The statistics also show that 29 schools have increased their college enrollment rate by more than the district average of nine percentage points since 2004.

Most recently, in conjunction with the Consortium on Chicago School research, CPS has begun to implement a College Match program, which matches juniors and seniors to the colleges they are academically qualified for to ensure they are considering programs that match their abilities and goals.

“But there is still a lot of room to improve,” Daley said. “We need to expand the programs that are working so that more students have access to them and more students become prepared for college.”

The Mayor said CPS needs the help of state government to do this.

“Especially during these tough times, our schools and our students need for our leaders in Springfield to step up and accept their responsibility to provide substantially greater funding for public education year by year,” he said.

Daley said he took responsibility for Chicago’s public schools 14 years ago so that every child in every school in Chicago could achieve their potential in life.

“In today’s global economy, although having a high school diploma is still essential, it is simply not enough for many professions. We must not settle into the status quo. We must challenge ourselves to keep our students’ progress going so that every child in every school graduates from high school ready to go on to some form of higher education,” he said.