More CPS students are graduating high school. But a new report finds finishing college is still a struggle.
Chicago Public Schools students are graduating high school at unprecedented rates, a new report finds, but researchers predict that less than a third of current ninth graders will complete a college credential in the next decade.
The analysis is the 10th annual report about the educational attainment of CPS students from The To&Through Project, an education-focused research group based at the University of Chicago.
“We really see this report not as a report about CPS — it's a report about the system as a whole in Chicago, and how it's serving students from different groups and different backgrounds,” said Alexandra Usher, a senior research analyst for To&Through. “There's a lot in there that's really exciting. And then we see that there are … still some disparities in the outcomes, in the way that the system is not equally supporting all students.”
According to the report published earlier this month, the high school graduation rate among students of all races increased from 62% in 2008 to 85% in 2023. Among young white women and men, the high school graduation rate was 93% and 90% in 2023, compared to 88% and 83% of young Latino women and men and 85% and 78% of young Black women and men.
“What's been really encouraging about this report over time is that we've always been able to say we are consistently, steadily, slowly — it's not as fast as any of us want it — but we are making progress,” said Dom McKoy, To&Through’s executive director.
He said the report is an important reminder about the value of college in an era when some are questioning whether students want to go. To&Through researchers found that more than 60% of CPS students immediately enrolled in college.
“In a city as big as Chicago, that's 14,000 kids a year that are putting their hopes, dreams, excitement in this pathway, and we have a whole ecosystem of people and adults and families that are trying to support those students along the way,” McKoy said.
But he and Usher said there is still much work to be done, especially when it comes to racially marginalized groups that continue to have much lower access to higher education than their white and Asian peers.
According to the report, just 25% of young Black men who enrolled in college immediately after high school had earned a degree by age 25, compared to 67% of young white men.
McKoy said this is not a reflection of students’ academic ability but of the lasting impacts of Chicago’s racial segregation and oppression on their communities. The average Black family holds one-tenth of the wealth of the average white family, and the average Black college graduate owes more than twice the amount of a white college graduate, according to the Brookings Institute.
McKoy said disrupting these patterns and ensuring all students have access to college is not just about increasing degree completion rates. It’s about making sure students have the opportunity to explore different interests and career paths.
“I think about my own experience: If you tried to explain to 17-year-old me what my job would be today, he would have been like, ‘You're lying.’ I didn't know this even existed,’ ” McKoy said. “I didn't even necessarily learn that this job was possible in college, but college set me on a path to have experiences to be able to get here, and I think that is what we want to happen for all students in CPS.”
Lisa Kurian Philip covers higher education for WBEZ, in partnership with Open Campus.