Education Working Paper No. 3  September 2003 Public High School Graduation and College Readiness Rates in the United States Endnotes GED is an acronym for General Educational Development. Some people mistakenly believe that the “E” in “GED” stands for “equivalency.” These data are available at http://www.nces.ed.gov/ccd/stnfis.asp. Numbers do not sum exactly due to rounding. Two racial group cohorts (American Indian students in Alabama and Asian students in Oklahoma) were excluded because of suspected problems with the available data. A few data (the number of white 8th graders in Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin in 1996-97; the total grade-level enrollment figures in Michigan since 1997-98; and the total grade-level enrollment and diploma figures in the District of Columbia since 1998-99) were inaccurate in the CCD files; we obtained correct data from state officials. Data from this study are protected by confidentiality laws and are made available only to researchers who obtain a Restricted Use Data License from NCES. Not every student in the NAEP Transcript Study has a NAEP test score provided. For the transcript screen we analyze the entire data set, while for the test score screen we analyze only those students for whom a test score is provided. These data are available at http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DTGeoSearchByListServlet?ds_name=DE C_2000_SF2_U&_lang=en&_ts=77125736842; select which geographic areas to view, choose Table PCT3 (“Sex by Age”), and then go to “Change Selections” and choose “Race or Ethnic Groups.” This method has a limitation: it assumes that private schools produce college-ready graduates at the same rate as public schools. In reality, it is probable that private schools produce college-ready graduates at a higher rate. However, data on the college readiness of private-school graduates are not readily available. We chose this method for estimating the total population of college-ready graduates because it probably overestimates minority achievement somewhat rather than underestimating it. White students are more likely than minorities to attend private schools, so if this method does underestimate the college readiness of private-school graduates (as is probably the case) this will disproportionately reduce our estimate of white student college readiness, thus boosting our estimate of the portion of college-ready graduates who are minorities. Since part of our purpose is to look for evidence of problems in the education of minority students in the K-12 system, we deemed it safer to overestimate minority achievement somewhat rather than underestimate it. These data are available at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/2002212.pdf. We have no reason to believe that there are significant differences in racial composition among college cohorts that are very close to one another in time. Incoming freshmen in 2000 should look very much like incoming freshmen in 1999, 1998, and 1997. These data are available at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/2003060.pdf; see Table 181. For convenience we refer to Hispanic ethnicity as a “racial” group. Hispanic students are not included in any other group. References Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, “Empty Promises: The Myth of College Access in America,” June 2002. http://www.ed.gov/offices/AC/ACSFA/emptypromises.pdf Lutz Berkner and Lisa Chavez, “Access to Postsecondary Education for the 1992 High School Graduates,” National Center for Education Statistics, October 1997. http://nces.ed.gov/pubs98/access/98105.pdf Stephen Cameron and James Heckman, “The Nonequivalence of High School Equivalents,” Journal of Labor Economics 11(1), 1993. Duncan Chaplin, “GEDs for Teenagers: Are There Unintended Consequences?” The Urban Institute, November 29, 1999. http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/GED.pdf The Education Trust, “Youth at the Crossroads: Facing High School and Beyond,” Thinking K-16 5(1), Winter 2001. http://www2.edtrust.org/NR/rdonlyres/85897615-327E-4269-939A-4E14B 96861BB/0/k16_winter01.pdf Richard Fry, “Hispanic Youth Dropping Out of U.S. Schools: Measuring the Challenge,” Pew Hispanic Center, June 12, 2003. http://www.pewhispanic.org/site/docs/pdf/high%20school%20dropout%20re port--final.pdf Jay P. Greene, “High School Graduation Rates in the United States,” The Manhattan Institute and the Black Alliance for Educational Options, November 2001. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_baeo.htm Jay P. Greene, “High School Graduation Rates in Washington State,” The Manhattan Institute, August 2002. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_27.htm Jay P. Greene and Joshua C. Hall, “High School Graduation Rates in Ohio,” The Buckeye Institute, 2002. Jay P. Greene and Marcus A. Winters, “Public School Graduation Rates in the United States,” The Manhattan Institute, November 2002. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_31.htm John E. Hock, “School Quality,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 10, 2003. Phillip Kauffman, Martha Naomi Alt, and Christopher Chapman, “Dropout Rates in the United States: 2000,” National Center for Education Statistics, November 2001. http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2002114 Laurie Lewis and Elizabeth Farris, “Remedial Education at Higher Education Institutions in Fall 1995,” National Center for Education Statistics, October 1996. http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/97584.pdf Susan Cooper Loomis and Mary Lyn Bourque, “National Assessment of Educational Progress Achievement Levels 1992-1998 for Reading,” National Assessment Governing Board, July 2001. http://www.nagb.org/pubs/readingbook.pdf Richard J. Murnane, John B. Willett, and Kathryn Parker Boudett, “Do High School Dropouts Benefit from Obtaining a GED?” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 17(2), 1995. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, “NAACP Call for Action in Education,” May 2003. http://www.naacp.org/work/education/educalltoactn2.pdf National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics 2002, June 2003. http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/2003060.pdf Zanto Peabody, “Subject of Dropouts Bedeviling HISD,” Houston Chronicle, February 14, 2003. Diana Jean Schemo, “Education Secretary Defends School System He Once Led,” New York Times, July 26, 2003. Andrew Sum, et. al., “The Hidden Crisis in the High School Dropout Problems of Young Adults in the U.S.,” Business Roundtable, February 2003. http://www.brtable.org/pdf/914.pdf Christopher B. Swanson and Duncan Chaplin, “Counting High School Graduates when Graduates Count,” The Urban Institute, February 23, 2003. http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/410641_NCLB.pdf Texas Education Agency, “Secondary School Completion and Dropouts in Texas Public Schools 2001-02,” August 2003. http://www.tea.state.tx.us/research/pdfs/0102cnty.pdf Greg Winter, “Tens of Thousands Will Lose College Aid, Report Says,” New York Times, July 18, 2003. Beth Young, “Public High School Dropouts and Completers from the Core of Common Data: School Years 1998–99 and 1999–2000” National Center for Education Statistics, August 2002. http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2002382

EMAIL THIS | PRINTER FRIENDLY EWP 03 PDF (96 kb) WHAT THE PRESS SAID SUMMARY: Students who fail to graduate high school prepared to attend a four-year college are much less likely to gain full access to our country’s economic, political, and social opportunities. In this study, Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Jay P. Greene, Ph.D., and Senior Research Associate Greg Forster, Ph.D., estimate the percentage of students in the public high school class of 2001 who actually possess the minimum qualifications for applying to four-year colleges. The study finds that, nationally, only 32% of students in the Class of 2001 were college ready, with significantly lower rates for black and Hispanic students. This suggests that the main reason these groups are underrepresented in college admissions is that they are not acquiring college-ready skills in the K-12 system, rather than inadequate financial aid or affirmative action policies. TABLE OF CONTENTS: Executive Summary About the Authors Acknowledgements About Education Working Papers Introduction Previous Research High School Graduation Rate College Readiness Rate Method High School Graduation Rate College Readiness Rate Comparison of Overall, College-Ready, and College-Entering Populations Results High School Graduation Rate College Readiness Rate Comparison of Overall, College-Ready, and College-Entering Populations Conclusion Endnotes References Appendix Table 1: High School Graduation Rate by State and Race Table 2: Ranking of States by High School Graduation Rate Table 3: Ranking of States by White High School Graduation Rate Table 4: Ranking of States by Black High School Graduation Rate Table 5: Ranking of States by Hispanic High School Graduation Rate Table 6: Ranking of States by Asian High School Graduation Rate Table 7: Ranking of States by American Indian High School Graduation Rate Table 8: Proportion of All Students Who Graduate with College-Ready Transcripts Table 9: College Readiness Rate Table 10: Comparison of Overall, College-Ready, and College-Entering Populations in 2000