RESEARCH BRIEF DECEMBER 2014 - The Educational Attainment of Chicago Public Schools Students - A Focus on Four-Year College Degrees

Oct 15, 2026

Research brief December 2014 examines educational attainment among Chicago Public Schools students, focusing on the likelihood of earning four-year college degrees. It explains the To&Through Project’s purpose: providing actionable milestones throughout K-12 that relate to success in high school and college. The report updates a 2006 estimate using a degree attainment index that combines high school graduation, four-year college enrollment, and bachelor’s degree completion, and it discusses changes in college readiness measures and institutional choices.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages28

Reading Time1 h 11 min

AccessFree to download

What Proportion of CPS NinthGraders Earn a Four-Year Degree?

Introduction

The 2014 Degree Attainment Index

RESEARCH BRIEF DECEMBER 2014 The Educational Attainment of Chicago Public Schools Students A Focus on Four-Year College Degrees Kaleen Healey, Jenny Nagaoka, and Valerie Michelman The aim of The To&Through Project is to drive higher high school and college graduation rates. To reach that goal, families, policymakers, and educators need clear, actionable data on the milestones that research demonstrates are pivotal to success. The To&Through Project is a three-part series of Urban Education Institute data reports and tools. It fills information gaps by highlighting critical points students encounter during their K-12 years that are strongly related to their likelihood of success in high school and college. The project sheds light on surprising findings and prompts additional questions. Focusing on the goal of college completion, To&Through equips stakeholders with a new depth of information, both across the district and for individual Chicago public schools. Reports are organized in a way that allow students, families, counselors, principals, admissions officers, higher education leaders, and others to make and support smarter decisions. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors gratefully acknowledge the many people who contributed to this brief. The content of this brief was shaped by valuable feedback provided by the Donors Forum College and Career Access, Persistence and Success Group and the UChicago CCSR College Success Report advisory board. CCSR Steering Committee members Brian Spittle and Raquel Farmer-Hinton offered very thoughtful reviews as we finalized the narrative. We are grateful for the technical support and data expertise provided by Thomas Kelley-Kemple and Will Hobart at CPS. We thank the members of CCSR’s research review group, especially Elaine Allensworth, Penny Sebring, and Marisa de la Torre, and technical readers Matthew Holsapple and Julia Gwynne, for their helpful reviews. CCSR’s communications team, including Emily Krone, Bronwyn McDaniel, and Jessica Puller, were instrumental in the production of this brief. We also thank Melissa Roderick and CCSR’s postsecondary research team for providing the research base that guides this brief. This work was supported by the Crown Family Philanthropies, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and an anonymous funder. We thank them for their support and collaboration with this project. We are also grateful for the operating grants from the Spencer Foundation and the Lewis-Sebring Family Foundation that support the work of UChicago CCSR. This report was produced by UChicago CCSR’s publications and communications staff: Emily Krone, Director for Outreach and Communication; Bronwyn McDaniel, Senior Manager for Outreach and Communication; and Jessica Puller, Communications Specialist. Graphic Design: Jeff Hall Design Photography: Lloyd DeGrane, Cynthia Howe, and David Schalliol Editing: Ann Lindner What Proportion of CPS NinthGraders Earn a Four-Year Degree? Introduction A four-year college degree increases a student’s employment prospects and earning potential.1 Given this importance, it is not surprising that 75 percent of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) high school students aspire to obtain at least a four-year college degree.2 Yet, prior research showed that few achieved this goal: a 2006 University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research (UChicago CCSR) report estimated that—based on high school graduation rates, college enrollment rates, and college graduation rates—just 8 percent ofCPS ninth-graders would earn a bachelor’s degree by the time they reached their mid-twenties.3 This number was shockingly low to many people and served as a rallying cry to drastically improve the college success of Chicago’s students. It also provided a baseline for examining changes in the educational attainment of CPS students over time. This brief updates that statistic, which we call the“degree attainment index” and describes the changes in the key mi

FAQs

What is the To&Through Project aiming to achieve?

It aims to drive higher high school and college graduation rates by providing clear, actionable data on key student milestones related to success.

How does the report define the “degree attainment index”?

It combines the most recent rates of high school graduation, four-year college enrollment, and bachelor’s degree completion into a single metric tracked over time.

What does the 2014 degree attainment index estimate for CPS ninth-graders?

It estimates that of 100 CPS ninth-graders, 14 will earn a four-year college degree within 10 years of beginning high school.

Oct 15, 2026

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