1. What is the current state of the educational attainment of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students?
2. How have CPS students performed on key attainment milestones over time?
This annual report looks closely at how CPS students are progressing on the path to and through high school and college. In particular, we examine three key milestones: high school graduation, college enrollment, and college completion, and track how rates on these milestones have changed across time. These rates are then used to calculate an updated Post-secondary Attainment Index (PAI) which represents the proportion of current CPS ninth-graders who would complete any degree or certificate from a two-year or four-year college within 10 years, if current rates of attainment were to hold constant over the next decade.
This year’s educational attainment updates are shared via a webpage that links to additional data on the To&Through Project’s data tool.
Key Findings
- The high school graduation rate increased to an all-time high of 85%.
- The college enrollment rate increased to 63% after seeing pandemic dips, approaching the prior high of 64% from 2017.
- The four-year college enrollment rate increased 2.5 percentage points to an all-time high of 47.5%, while the two-year college enrollment rate declined slightly to 15.7%.
- College completion rates are holding relatively steady for four-year and two-year college enrollees—at 54% and 31%, respectively.
- Completion rates among students who did not immediately enroll in college have been declining since 2009, dropped to just 4.3% for the most recent CPS cohort (class of 2017).
- College completion rate index:
- If current rates hold, 31 of 100 ninth-graders in CPS would earn a college credential by the time they’re 25 years old (see Figure 1: the Post-secondary Attainment Index).
- This is the highest Post-secondary Attainment Index (PAI) reported in the ten years of this annual milestones report
- For the past 10 years, the Post-secondary Attainment Index (PAI) has served as our best measure of the citywide effort around improving college degree attainment for CPS students.
- The PAI is not a prediction.
- Historically, actual reported rates have exceeded prior PAI measures (see figure A.2)
- It presents a starting place for thinking about why these patterns exist and what can be done to improve these patterns.
- If current rates hold, 31 of 100 ninth-graders in CPS would earn a college credential by the time they’re 25 years old (see Figure 1: the Post-secondary Attainment Index).
- The total number of college completers from each CPS graduating class has increased over the past 10 years, with 2,613 more students from the CPS class of 2017 completing college than from the CPS class of 2008 (6,930 vs. 4,317, respectively)—a more than 60% increase.
- Chicago’s rates are similar to national rates—notable given that Chicago has higher proportions of low-income, Black,and Latinx students. Nationally…
- The 2022 average adjusted cohort high school graduation rate for all public school students nationally was 87%. For Black and Hispanic students nationally, the average high school graduation rate was 81% and 83%, respectively. (NCES data)
- The rate of immediate enrollment rate into four-year colleges among high school graduates was 45% in 2022, and the rate of immediate enrollment into two-year colleges was 17%. (NCES data)
- The six-year national Bachelor’s Degree completion rate for 2017 first-time enrollees in 4-year institutions aged 20 and younger was 68.8%. (NSC data)
