November 20, 2008 State of Education: Increasing success in college Play video

(Peter Howe, NECN) - NECN and The Boston Foundation continue the series: "State of Education: Making the grade in Massachusetts". The focus of the program this month is higher education. Reporter Peter Howe explains how Boston leaders are making a strong push to increase success in college.

For years, Boston leaders like Mayor Thomas M. Menino have taken pride that so many more Boston public high school graduates enroll in college than most urban systems -- close to 2/3 of all graduating Boston seniors in several recent years.

But until this week, no one had systematically asked: How many are graduating from college? The answer: Shockingly few. Barely a third. That's from a pioneering new study released Monday by Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies and the Boston Private Industry Council. It tracked all 1,800 students who graduated from Boston public high schools in the year 2000 and went on to college. By 2007, just 35.5 percent had graduated from a two- or four-year college. Fifty-nine percent coming out of elite exam schools like Boston Latin School and enrolling in college graduated from college by 2007, just 24 percent coming from all other city high schools.

"You know, it's tough for us to get up here and say these numbers, but it shows how committed we are to the young people of Boston,'' Menino said of the report findings. "Our kids need to stay in college to graduate and earn the all-important college degrees to secure the

College completion rates ranged from under 30 percent for Hispanics and blacks up to 52 and 53 percent for Asian-Americans and whites. Overall 36.6 percent of female Boston 2000 high school graduates made it through college by 2007, compared to 33.9 percent of men.

"We owe it to our children to make sure that we are doing everything in our power to promote their success,'' said the Rev. Gregory Groover, vice chairman of the Boston School Committee.

Menino's now vowing to double the percentage of Boston high school alumni graduating from college by the year 2011. Northeastern University's pledging expanded remedial help for high school graduates who still aren't ready for college, and The Boston Foundation $1 million in new aid targeted to helping more Boston high school graduates graduate from college.

Two big questions the Northeastern/PIC report doesn't answer: Why aren't more Boston high school grads making it through college? What would help more succeed? "The report was designed to be a tracking system,'' said NU professor Andrew Sum, head of the center for labor market studies. "It wasn't intended to go in and look at the individual transcripts and experiences of students to look at what is happening there.''

Boston school superintendent Carol Johnson said it's up to both high schools and colleges to better support students: "We have to make sure that students who are learning English, students who are late arrivals, students who are having challenges in the work actually graduate from high school college-ready. Just getting access to college won't be enough, either. We have to make sure that when they go through the doors they actually get the kind of support, especially for our students who are first generation high school graduates some of them, definitely first generation college-goers.''

In 2000, 64 percent of graduating Hub seniors enrolled in college, about 68 percent of all females, 60 percent of males. Going to college were 56 percent of Hispanics, 60 percent of blacks, 72 percent of whites, and 81 percent of Asian-Americans.

One question the report doesn't get into, so we put it to the study authors and also the mayor and school superintendent: Is part of the problem here potentially that Boston is pushing too many students towards college, in particular students who might be better served by a skilled trade or vocational program?

"We're not pushing them towards college,'' Menino says. "They're making that decision they want to go to college. They've all taken tests to get into these colleges. We don't put them there. They apply. They pass the requirements of those colleges.''

"I think,'' Johnson says, "students understand the economic reality. You have to have some post-secondary education to make it in this economy, and I think that's why more of them are choosing to go on to post-secondary.''

Neil Sullivan, executive director of the business-backed PIC, says: "In the new economy most of what you used to call the vocational programs are on college campuses. We need to help students go to college with a purpose. Students who know why they are going to college do better once they get there.''

Agrees Sum: "I think it is very important for students to see the link between why we're asking them to go to school and what they're learning in school and what they can hope to apply on the job. If we could tie training on the job with post-secondary education, it would really help facilitate the retention rate for a number of these students who at times have a difficult time understanding why they're doing what they are in the post-secondary world.''

Many specialists said Menino deserves credit for airing these numbers on college success rates, because many other mayors wouldn't agree to cooperate with a report like this and risk seeing some bad numbers come out. His commitment to keeping the information coming every year -- NU and the PIC plan to make this an annual survey on how Boston students are faring in college -- that will keep up the pressure to help more Boston high school graduates succeed in graduating from college also.

"I want to credit the mayor for there is such power in facing up to data like this in an absolutely unflinching way, exploring it, unpacking it, and then rallying the community to do something about it,'' Boston Foundation CEO Paul S. Grogan says.

Added Dr. Gary Gottlieb, president of Brigham & Women's Hospital and chairman of the Private Industry Council, says: "Going forward we can harvest these data on an ongoing basis and have a real way of testing the challenge that the mayor has provided for us. We'll be able to look at each of the ensuing classes in shorter time and in longer time and see what progress we're making.''

Boosting college graduation rates is also just plan good for business because the Massachusetts Department of Education estimates that 60 percent of all jobs that will be created in the metropolitan Boston region in the next decade will require an associate or bachelor's degree. Gottlieb cites studies that over a person's career, earning a college degree increases their lifetime income by $1 million compared to what they would have earned with just a high school diploma.

"Increasing the number of college degree holders is more powerful than any other single thing we could do" to boost the regional economy in coming years, Grogan says.

Grogan adds that experience with improving urban high school students' success in college proves that Menino's goal of doubling college completion rates by 2011 can be met. "We can do this,'' Grogan says. "We absolutely can do this. This is not one of these hopeless intractable things that you don't even want to look at the data because you don't have any idea what to do about it. ''

State of Education: Improving higher education rates

State of Education: Successful higher education programs

State of Education: Making college accessible

State of Education: Coping with the high costs

State of Education: How progress can be made