College Bound

Recently, the Inquirer wrote this article that states that "Only 49 percent of Philadelphia graduates ever enroll in two- or four-year colleges."

Let's do a little work with that percentage. First, it's 49 percent of Philadelphia high school graduates-- so how many Philadelphia high schoolers graduate?

Well, a Notebook article told us that the "district's four-year, on-time graduation rate for the freshman class that started in fall 2006...[is] 57 percent."

OK, so only 57% of Philadelphia public high schoolers graduated, and of the graduates, only 49% enrolled in college. The actual percentage, then, of Philadelphia public high school students who attend college is not 49% but 28% (49% of 57).

So, if you walk into a Philadelphia high school classroom of 20 students, about 5, maybe 6, of them will go to college.