California faces substantial challenges to improving its students’ college readiness, attendance, and graduation, and the problems vary significantly among the state’s geographic regions and racial groups, according to a report being released today by the Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy at California State University’s Sacramento campus.
The report, “State of Decline? Gaps in College Access and Achievement Call for Renewed Commitment to Educating Californians,” found some statewide improvements, such as growing numbers of eighth graders’ taking algebra and improved overall scores on standardized tests.
But the report identifies several problem areas, including a decline over the past decade among all racial groups in the proportion of high-school students who go directly to college. That rate also varies substantially among the state’s geographic regions and racial groups. For instance, the college-going rate directly from high schools ranges from a low of 23 percent in the Upper Sacramento Valley to a high of 67 percent in the Central Coast area, the report says.
Seven out of 10 Asian high-school graduates in California go directly to college, a rate that is far higher than that of any other racial group, according to the report. The proportion for black students is 49 percent; white students, 47 percent; and Hispanic students, 43 percent.
