Public high school grads struggle at college

Diane Rado, Jodi S. Cohen and Joe Germuska, via a kind Chan Stroman-Roll email:

Ariana Taylor thought she was ready for college after taking Advanced Placement physics and English at her Chicago public high school and graduating with a 3.2 GPA.

Instead, at Illinois State University, she was overwhelmed by her course load and the demands of college. Her GPA freshman year dropped to 2.7 -- and that was significantly better than other graduates from Morgan Park High School, who averaged a 1.75 at Illinois State.

"It was really a big culture shock," said Taylor, 20, now a junior who has started a mentorship program for incoming freshmen. "I had no idea what it would be like."

A Tribune analysis of data available to Illinois citizens for the first time raises fundamental questions about how well the state's public high schools are preparing their students for college. The data show these students struggle to get a B average as freshmen at the state's universities and community colleges, even after leaving top-performing high schools with good grades. In fact, public school graduates at 10 of the state's 11 four-year universities averaged less than a 3.0 GPA their freshman year.

First-year performance at Illinois public universities and colleges

First-year performance at Illinois public universities and colleges

The newly-released High School-to-College Success Report shows how Illinois public school graduates fared when they became freshmen at the state's universities and community colleges. The ACT company tracked more than 90,000 students who graduated from public high schools between 2006 and 2008, and then enrolled full-time at an Illinois university or community college that fall. The data do not include students who went to a private college or out-of-state. For each high school, families can look up average high school GPAs and grade point averages earned at each public university and community college that students attended.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 1, 2011 1:28 PM
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