College-going rate for Hamilton County high school graduates is falling

The college-going rate of Hamilton County Schools seniors fell more than 11% in the past five years.

The number of Hamilton County public school seniors who opted to go to college or technical school immediately after graduation dropped from 65.9% in 2017 to 54.7% in 2021.

That follows similar statewide and national trends, with Tennessee's college-going rate falling from 63.8% in 2017 to 52.8% last year.

The data, released in a report May 23 by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, came with a call to action.

"In the current economic reality, a high school diploma is not enough for long-term success," the commission's executive director, Emily House, said in a news release. "All students can benefit from postsecondary education or training beyond high school to achieve success and provide opportunities for advancement, which is why the college-going rate decline and disparities should be a call to action for Tennessee and our nation."

The statewide college-going rate of 52.8% for the class of 2021 represents a drop of 4 percentage points from the previous year and is the lowest rate in at least a decade.

"What that translates to is, per year, at the new rate, that's 7,000 fewer students going to college," Steven Gentile, the chief policy officer at the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, said in a phone call.

The rate isn't distributed evenly among Tennessee counties, according to the report.

Williamson County has the highest rate at 81.3%, while Fayette County has the lowest, 32.6%.

"We're going in the wrong direction very fast," University of Tennessee System President Randy Boyd said at a recent panel discussion hosted by UT's Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy.

Behind the numbers

Experts can only hypothesize why college-going rates have declined, but the pandemic is likely one contributing factor, they said.

"Since the pandemic, it has dipped substantially from 61.8% to 52.8%. So, a decline over the past two years of 9 percentage points," Gentile said.

Celeste Carruthers, a professor of labor economics at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, said at the May 23 panel discussion that student aversion to online learning may have discouraged students from going to college in 2021. However, she said, the opposite might be true as well.

"While the preponderance of online learning may have kept some students away from college, you're going to have some other students who would rather not go to class and bear the health risks of catching or spreading COVID," Carruthers said.

The labor market currently favors high school graduates over those with college degrees, she said.

"We're competing with higher wages right now for students coming straight out of high school," Carruthers said. "A lot of high school students, they're not going to struggle to find jobs in the short term. The question: Do they have what they need for the workforce for the long term?"

Data shows that those with bachelor's degrees have more earning potential and lower unemployment rates than people with only a high school diploma, Carruthers said. Overall, the New York Federal Reserve estimates a 14% return on a four-year college investment.

Behind goal

"The report is a little bit of a wake-up call," Jen Bronson, executive director for Chattanooga 2.0, said in a phone call. "It's definitely eye-opening."

The organization is committed to education equity, and part of that is working collaboratively with community partners, like the Public Education Foundation, to improve college-going rates and college retention for students in Hamilton County.

Chattanooga 2.0's current goal, among many, is to see 80% of Hamilton County students graduate on time and 80% receive a postsecondary degree or certificate within six years of graduation.

In terms of on-time graduation, Hamilton County students are exceeding expectations, with 87% graduating on time, according to state data.

However, when it comes to obtaining a postsecondary degree, there's work to be done. In 2021, 54.7% of Hamilton County seniors enrolled in college. In 2017, that rate was 65.9%.

Bronson said that while the Tennessee Higher Education Commission's report was enlightening, there were a few blind spots.

"I think it begs a few questions. For instance, household income wasn't a demographic that was included in the analysis," Bronson said. "What is the impact of poverty on a student's willingness to pursue a postsecondary degree when maybe the immediate need is for them to join the workforce?"

The report does reveal disparities between gender and race. Latinos had the fewest college enrollees, with 35% going to college in 2021. For Black students, 44% enrolled. White high school graduates had the highest, with 57.6%.

According to state data, which combines Black and Latino students into one group, just over half who graduate from Hamilton County Schools enroll in postsecondary education. English language learners in Hamilton County are least likely to attend college, with 27% enrolling in college in 2021. Data on white college enrollees from Hamilton County was not provided in the state's database.

The gender gap has also widened, with 47% of male high school graduates in Tennessee attending postsecondary education last fall while 59% of females did. Overall Latino males had the fewest with 29% going on to postsecondary education in 2021. White females had the highest, with 64.2%.

Local colleges

Statewide, the class of 2021 has increased enrollment at out-of-state institutions, according to the commission's report. Tennessee Board of Regents colleges have been hit the hardest, seeing a 6 percentage point drop in enrollment since 2017.

Among them is Chattanooga State Community College, which has lost approximately 1,000 students since 2017.

However, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga has remained consistent since 2017, maintaining its student population of roughly 12,000 every year.

Vice Chancellor of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs Yancy Freeman attributes that to the university's proactive enrollment efforts.

"We saw some declines in first-time freshman students, like everybody else did. But our dips were not as steep as some of the other campuses," Freeman said in a phone call. "We do phone calling campaigns for students who haven't registered. Our offices do outreach to them if they are having any sort of questions or concerns. We do that to make sure that students can get registered, that there aren't any roadblocks or obstacles."

Tennessee high school graduates’ college-going rates

School systems across Tennessee have seen a declining number of high school graduates opting to enroll in college or technical schools.COUNTY, 2017, 2021Bledsoe, 53.3, 35.2Bradley, 65, 59.1Coffee, 58.2, 49Franklin, 53.4, 45.1Grundy, 53.9, 45Hamilton, 65.9, 54.7Marion, 58.2, 45.9McMinn, 54.1, 49.9Meigs, 59.3, 55.9Polk, 47.5, 49.3Rhea, 58.5, 47.2Sequatchie, 67.1, 54.8TENNESSEE, 63.8, 56.8

Class of 2022

Many Hamilton County high school graduates still plan on going to college in the fall- and have always dreamed of doing so.

Kaylea Moore, 18, will be the first-ever graduate from Tyner Academy to attend Howard University, a historically Black research college in Washington, D.C. There, she'll study political science.

"I've always strived to be a high school graduate and potentially a college graduate. Because all of my siblings will be first-generation," Moore said. "(I want to) keep my mom's legacy alive. Even though she didn't go to a four-year college, she did believe in the education of college."

According to district data, 87% of students matriculating at colleges from the class of 2022 plan to stay in Tennessee. Three percent will go to Alabama and 2% to Georgia. The rest will in enroll in schools elsewhere, with three Tennessee students attending schools overseas.

What's next?

Whether low college-going rates are here to stay is unknown, Gentile said.

"We've seen some bright spots in the college-going rates," he said. "And this corresponds well to where we have put in state-funded advisers, or the federally funded GEAR UP program, which is run through our agency, in which we target high school seniors, and certain counties that have low college-going rates to get them more geared towards graduating and going on to college."

Bronson said part of Chattanooga 2.0's solution will be more engagement with students.

"A robust reflection on this report would include talking with students. We need to know from them, we need to listen to them, about what barriers they're facing and what solutions need to be created for them to have a clear path to post-secondary and self-sustaining jobs," Bronson said.

Another solution is helping students understand what the long-term impact of a college education is, Freeman said.

"We have to spend a lot more time and a lot more emphasis talking about the value of a higher-ed degree for students around choices of long-term sustainability: their household, their ability to earn dollars. Health outcomes are even connected to our education level," Freeman said.

The Tennessee Higher Education Commission plans to move forward in engaging with students, school districts and educational leaders to find solutions to increase college access.

"Solutions that can be implemented at the local level, the state level, regional level," Gentile said.

Contact Carmen Nesbitt at cnesbitt@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6327. Follow her on Twitter @carmen_nesbitt.

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