This joint study by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research and the To&Through Project points to important differences between the four-year and six-year completion rates for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) graduates who received bachelor's degrees. It investigates four-year and six-year college completion trends for 2004-14 CPS…

The focus of this study is on understanding different indicators of academic performance in high school, college enrollment, and college persistence of English Learners--including variation in attainment among active and former English Learners--to support their path to high school graduation and access to college. To understand the academic…

Recent data from Chicago Public Schools (CPS) show that active English Learners were less likely to graduate from high school (77% did so in 2023) than their peers (85%) and less likely to enroll in college (56% of 2022 English Learners high school graduates enrolled in college compared to 66 percent of their non-English Learners high school…

Over the past decade, the college enrollment rate for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) graduates has steadily increased, but the college completion rate has remained relatively flat. At the same time, practitioners have realized that the "traditional" path through college--enrolling in one institution and remaining enrolled through…

High school GPAs (HSGPAs) are often perceived to represent inconsistent levels of readiness for college across high schools, while test scores (e.g., ACT scores) are seen as comparable. This study tests those assumptions, examining variation across high schools of both HSGPAs and ACT scores as measures of academic readiness for college. We find…

This report from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research and the To&Through Project examines two- and four-year college enrollment patterns among Chicago Public Schools (CPS) graduates over the last 10 years. CPS graduates' immediate college enrollment rates increased over the decade, with 63 percent of 2015 graduates enrolling…

This report is a compendium of college access-related data that is intended to provide a detailed overview of Baltimore City Schools (City Schools) students' experiences preparing for, enrolling in, and completing postsecondary education. Although constrained in its scope, this report is offered in light of the fact that, more and more,…

This report is an annual look at Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students' likelihood of obtaining a college degree within 10 years of beginning high school finds that 18 percent of 2016 ninth-graders are projected to earn a bachelor's degree within six years of high school graduation, a number that has held steady since 2015. The report also finds…

This Fact Book follows a series of reports completed by the Baltimore Education Research Consortium (BERC) between 2011 and 2015, that examined Baltimore City graduates' enrollment in college and later degree completion (Durham, Stein, & Connolly, 2015; Durham & Olson, 2013; Durham & Westlund, 2011), as well as indicators of college…

The Chicago Public Schools' (CPS) vision is that every student graduates from high school prepared for success in college, career, and life. To help the city reach that goal, the To&Through Project is providing data that track the progress of students in Chicago and identify where students are falling off the path to college degree attainment.…

The total number of Baltimore City Schools (City Schools) graduates who enrolled in college the next fall declined across the Classes of 2007-2014. The percentage of graduates enrolling in college also decreased by more than 7.0 percentage points, from 49.8% to 42.0%. At the same time, the total number of high school graduates increased, as cohort…

This report is designed to provide a detailed picture of the relationship between students' performance in the middle grades (grades five through eight) and their subsequent performance in high school and college among students in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). The key findings of this report have been summarized in briefs for middle grade and…

The transition from eighth grade to high school results in a substantial drop in course performance for many students. These declines in performance lead students to fall off-track for obtaining high school and college degrees. By using data on students' middle grade performance, high school staff can set goals for their students to help them meet…

The Ingenuity program was designed to "provide Baltimore's brightest middle school students with a free, highly accelerated, and challenging mathematics and science curriculum" (Ingenuity Project, 2014). It started in 1993 at two middle schools, one on the east side of Baltimore and the second on the west, but as of SY 2014-15 the…

A four-year college degree increases a student's employment prospects and earning potential. Given this importance, it is not surprising that 75 percent of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) high school students aspire to obtain at least a four-year college degree. Yet, prior research showed that few achieved this goal: a 2006 University of Chicago…