Many qualified high-school graduates do not go on to college. A report released today by the Institute for Higher Education Policy and the Education Resource Institute examines factors that might explain why.

The report, Promise Lost: College-Qualified Students Who Don’t Enroll in College, has three parts: a survey of college-qualified high-school graduates, a survey of high-school guidance counselors, and input from experts who attended a 2007 roundtable discussion. The report outlines several reasons qualified students do not enroll in college:

Cost. Respondents to the student survey who did not enroll in college cited its cost as a key factor. Many indicated that the availability of grant aid and an aversion to borrowing were also important factors.

Preparation. While about three-quarters of students who did enroll in college said academic preparation was very important in their decision, only about a third of non-college-goers said so.

Opportunity Cost. Some respondents cited the need to work as an important factor in deciding whether to go to college. African-American and low-income students were particularly likely to cite that reason.

The report recommends policy shifts to deal with each of those factors. It suggests creating early-commitment financial-aid programs for qualified students to help resolve their concern about cost. To help students worried about taking time out of the work force, it suggests increasing the income-protection amount in aid calculations and creating cooperative-education programs. And to help students become academically prepared, it recommends requiring a course on college as early as the seventh grade. —Beckie Supiano