Less high school grads but more going to college?

The Wall Street Journal reported today that fewer low-income and moderate-income students attended college in 2004 than in 1992. Here is that story: Fewer Low-Income Students Going to College - Real Time Economics - WSJ

For Louisiana that statistic is a bit difficult to find.

Both the Louisiana Department of Education and the Louisiana Board of Regents don't keep track of this information on the data available on their websites. But poking around, we found other statistics that were just as interesting.

In the latest information available (the 2007-2008 school year) there were 34,403 graduates from Louisiana public high schools. That's less than the 2000-01 school year -- 38, 314.

Those who graduated from high school in 2000-01 and became first-time full-time freshman was 15, 299. Of those, 39 percent of 5,900 students needed developmental courses in college.

Compare that to students who graduated from 2007-08. Out of 34,403 students, 15,958 became first-time full-time freshmen and 4,471 or 28 percent needed development courses.

Yes, less needed developmental courses but there are less are graduating over all. So how does that compare to on the district level? The patterns are similar.

Even though there more high school graduates than in years past going straight into college and less folks going into remedial courses, there are also less graduating high schoolers. Does that mean that those who do stay and graduate are more likely to go to a college/university? Perhaps. That's an interesting question to explore but while there are high school drop outs, there are also college drop outs. So now the question is how to address both problems?

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