U.S. News & World Report

Imagine a class of 100 high school freshmen from all races, incomes and achievement levels. If typical, three-quarters of them would aspire to earn a bachelor’s degree after high school. But how many will? Try a mere 18.

Nationwide, an estimated 18 percent of high school freshmen will earn four-year college degrees by age 25. This figure surprises most, but it is a state of affairs we’ve been confronting in Chicago for nearly a decade. In 2006, the Consortium on Chicago School Research calculated the Chicago Public Schools “Degree Attainment Index” for its high school freshmen to be just 8 percent...