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Learning
& Education
. How
Are Vermont's High School Students Doing? A brief recap ... As we noted last month, while there may be other indicators of how well Vermont's high school students are doing, we thought a look at some simple facts and figures might help provide a snapshot of student performance. In that light, we began this 2-part series with a look at high school graduation rates here in Vermont, comparing Vermont's performance to the nation's for the period 1981-1999, and looking at how Vermont's high schools compared with one another last year.
When we turned our attention to individual high schools in the state, we found a wide variety of graduation rates, from better than 9 out of 10 -- at Burr & Burton Academy [96%], Thetford Academy [94%], Stowe Middle/High School [94%], and Fair Haven [90%], and Colchester [90%] -- to two rates that hovered around the two-thirds mark -- Burlington [67%] and Winooski [65%]. Here in our DownStreet neighborhood, Vergennes posted the best rate [86%, 21st of 61], while Mount Abe fared worst [77%, 50th]. But even Mount Abe's relatively poor showing places it well above the national average, which had fallen to below 70% by 1999. All that was intended to address the first of the two simple questions we posed:
Now, in Part 2, we take on that second question. ... College
Continuation Rates for How, then, do Vermont's high school grads fare when it comes to continuing on to college?
The chart above shows both the H.S. graduation rates and the college continuation rates for Vermont as compared with the national average. As we noted last issue, Vermont's graduation rate continued to climb from a rate near the national average some 20 years ago, until it peaked in 1996 when Vermont ranked 1st in the nation. Thereafter, the grad rate dropped, but Vermont continued to hold a top-ten position among states as the national average declined more. The college continuation rate, however, shows an inverse relationship. While Vermont ranked 6th among states for high school grad rates in 1998 [80.93%], it ranked 42nd in the overall college continuation rate, placing it in the bottom 10 nationwide. This would seem to indicate that, while Vermont has done increasingly better in graduating its high school students, the percentage of those graduates who actually continue on to college has remained constant or fallen slightly. The following table shows the top and bottom 10 state rankings for the Overall Continuation Rate on to college for high school grads from their states. The Overall Rate is also broken out for attendance at Public vs. Private 2- and 4-year institutions. Finally, in all the tables which follow, we've also included data for the other New England states and New York even when they were not in the top or bottom ten.
As you can see, Massachusetts ranked number one in the nation for Overall Continuation Rate on to college, with more than 7-of-10 [71.5%] of high school grads continuing on to college -- rate nearly half-again the national average. This may be somewhat surprising since, if you look at the breakouts for Mass., it ranked 42nd, three spots below Vermont, for continuation on to Public 4-year schools. Similarly, Mass's showing for 2-year schools -- both public and private -- was only slightly above the median at 20th place. But it was Massachusetts's rate for continuation on to Private 4-year institutions that pushed it to the top: Nearly one-in-three [33.2%] of Mass's high school grads went on to pursue a degree at a private 4-year college or university, a rate roughly 2.5x that of the national average. ... Alaska [37.2%] and Nevada [37.1%] were at the bottom of the list as the only two states posting less than a 40% Overall Continuation Rate. If we look at the breakout for Vermont's Overall 42nd place ranking, we see that Vermont fared somewhat better for continuation on to Public 4-year schools, with a slightly better than 1-in-5 rate of 21.4% which placed it 39th overall for the 4-year Public category. On the other hand, Vermont placed near the bottom -- 49th place -- for continuation on to either Public or Private 2-year schools, with rates of 3.3% and 0.2%, respectively. These compare very poorly to the national averages, which posted a 16.5% rate for continuation on to Public 2-year schools -- exactly 5x better than Vermont -- while the U.S. rate for Private 2-year schools was 1.3%, or 6-1/2x better than Vermont. These stats would seem to suggest that, while CCV -- the state's 2-year public college mainstay -- has been a welcome addition to the opportunities available to Vermont's high school grads, there is still a long way to go before it can be seen to be serving enough of those grads. Vermont did fare somewhat better on other measures when it came to persistence on to college, specifically with regard to opportunity and with regard to persistence for students from low income households. ... ******* ******* If you would like to submit something for our Learning & Education section, don't hesitate to let us know. Simply e-mail us at learn@downstreetmagazine.com. The e-mail should contain your name, address, and a phone number where we can reach you. You may also send a copy of your proposed article. The text can either be included in the body of the e-mail, or you can send it as an attachment in just about any word processing format. If your piece is accepted, we will pay a small honorarium for your interest & your time. [See Freelancers Wanted for more details.] ******* ******* If you would like to advertise in this section, or throughout the magazine, please visit our Advertising Info Pages ... or call, write, or e-mail ads@downstreetmagazine.com. ******* ******* . |
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