College Enrollment and Completion

This update of an annual report from the Boston Private Industry Council in partnership with the Boston Foundation and Success Boston captures one of the first looks at how the pandemic affected whether Boston Public Schools graduates enrolled in and completed college. On enrollment, the report finds that the percentage of BPS graduates choosing to enroll in postsecondary education in the year after graduation declined for the fourth straight year for the Class of 2021.

The report also finds that the pandemic exacerbated racial and ethnic disparities in college enrollment. For example, while more than 70% of White and Asian BPS graduates in the Class of 2021 enrolled in higher education shortly after graduation, fewer than half of Black and Latino graduates did.

In terms of college completion, just over 52 percent of BPS Class of 2015 graduates who enrolled in college graduated in six years, again with racial and ethnic disparities: over 70% of White and Asian college enrollees from the Class of 2015 completed within six years, while only about 42% of Black and Latino enrollees did, similar to findings for previous classes.