Indicator: Postsecondary enrollment directly after high school graduation

Why it matters

College attainment is consistently associated with higher lifetime earnings, and greater benefits accrue with each additional year of education completed. However, there are persistent disparities in postsecondary enrollment for students from low-income households and students of color. Among the high school class of 2019, 66 percent of students enrolled in college in October. Rates of immediate enrollment after high school were lower among Black students (57 percent) and Latino students (64 percent) than White students (69 percent) and Asian students (82 percent). Postsecondary enrollment has continued to fall for each year of the COVID-19 pandemic, dropping 6.5 percent from fall 2019 to fall 2021, with larger decreases among Black, Indigenous, and White students compared to other racial and ethnic groups.

Disparities in rates of college enrollment are primarily driven by enrollment in four-year colleges. For example, in Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Black, White, and Asian high school graduates enrolled in two-year colleges at similar rates, whereas Latino students enrolled in two-year colleges at higher rates than all other groups; conversely, Latino students had the lowest rates of four-year college enrollment, followed by Black students. Thirty-three percent of Latino male students and 40 percent of Black male students enrolled in a four-year college, compared to 57 percent of White male students and 59 percent of Asian male students. Although female students were more likely to enroll in a four-year college than male students, the disparities across race and ethnicity were similar among female students.