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Trump

Marvin Joseph

It was a weekday morning, and music was blaring from Capital One Arena.

More than 2,000 teens — caught in brief glimpses on the jumbotron — waved pompoms and danced as music group T.O.B. played go-go covers of pop songs. They waved signs declaring themselves as part of the Class of 2024 and, by the end of the afternoon, had gotten pep talks from professional athletes and former first lady Michelle Obama.

The fanfare of college signing day is usually reserved for prospective athletes. But city leaders were celebrating students who are on their way to schools across the country, from big-name historically Black campuses to esteemed universities in their own backyard. Ten students even took home $5,000 scholarships.

There are other reasons to celebrate: More D.C. students are finishing high school and, after years of decline, the <a href="https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/State-of-D.C.-Schools.pdf" target=_blank>most recent data shows</a> that the share of students enrolling in college saw a modest improvement in 2022. But the city still has a problem with college completion — roughly 18 out of 100 ninth-graders will finish college within six years of graduating high school, according to an estimate from the D.C. Policy Center, a local think tank. Nationwide, about 64 percent of first-time college students finish in that amount of time, <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40#:~:text=The%206%2Dyear%20graduation%20rate,and%2067%20percent%20for%20females." target=_blank>federal data </a>shows.

Now city leaders — from top education officials to business owners — are throwing their support behind a lofty new goal: 80 percent six-year<b> </b>college completion by 2050.

“It’s a moonshot goal,” said Eric Waldo, president and chief executive of the D.C. College Access Program, a nonprofit that helps students go to college. “At a time where the headwinds have led to 30 years of education losses, we’re saying we want to double down, and that’s the only way this city is going to thrive.”

But getting there will take big changes, experts said, including expanding dual-enrollment programs that allow teens to earn college credit in high school, providing low-income students with more financial aid and making sure students are prepared for college.

“The reading ability of the students has to improve in high school,” said Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University, a popular destination for D.C. public-school graduates. She said students often come to college “many grade levels behind,” sometimes reading below the high school level. “It’s too late when they get to college, especially if they want to be nurses or IT professionals. To be on some of these intensive professional tracks, their reading skills have to improve.”

Students also have problems attending class consistently, a habit they often carry over from high school, McGuire said. In the most recent school year, about 63 percent of the 12th-grade class was chronically absent, meaning they had missed at least 18 days of school, according to <a href="https://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/publication/attachments/2022-23%20Attendance%20Report_FINAL_0.pdf" target=_blank>citywide attendance data</a>. “Most of our students who flunk out in the first year don’t attend class,” she added.

Maurice Edington, president at the University of the District of Columbia, also said many students come to campus behind in core subject areas.

“There’s a direct correlation, in general, between socioeconomic status and college preparedness,” Edington said. “We enroll many students from the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum who maybe haven’t matriculated through and not grown up in an environment where they had access to the kind of learning and resources and advice and support and structure at home that will allow them to start college in the fast lane.”

UDC offers academic coaching and tutoring but is also embracing “co-remediation,” which <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RBA810-1.html" target=_blank>researchers </a>are finding helps students stay in school. Traditionally, if a student needs to take pre-calculus for his major but isn’t ready academically, he would take lower-level math courses until he is — adding additional semesters of work. With co-remediation, that student would enroll directly in pre-calculus and get extra help outside of class at the same time, Edington said.

“That’s something we’re going to push heavily moving forward,” Edington said, as part of an effort to help students graduate faster — something the city needs if it wants to meet the 80-percent graduation target.

Lewis D. Ferebee, chancellor of D.C.'s traditional public-school district, acknowledged that students are behind. He pointed to the district’s Ninth Grade Academies, a program that helps teens transition into high school and, ultimately, finish ninth grade — often an indicator of whether a student graduates. Five out of the nine campuses with these academies have four-year high school graduation rates higher than the city’s 76 percent, city data shows.

This school year, the district started a similar program at 11 middle schools for kids transitioning from elementary school.

Students are also encouraged to apply to “Smart Choice Colleges,” campuses that D.C. students have attended and in which they’ve done well, Ferebee said. And during the pandemic, officials started DCPS Persists, which provides high school graduates with academic coaching, emotional support and small grants to help them afford expenses like books or transportation while they’re in college.

“The beauty of DCPS Persists is we’ve created that structure for students” where they can reach out for help, Ferebee said. “The ability to help students with their mental health, the social-emotional connection that they’ll have with DCPS as they go onto college, is something we think is important.”

Mikayla Kelley, 18, a senior at Banneker High School who attended last month’s college celebration, said students need more counseling while they are still in high school. “I definitely think more mental health support and in-care home support,” she said when asked about what it would take to help more students graduate. “A lot of students, they can’t focus on school because of external issues they have going on at home.”

Inside Capital One Arena, she wore the blue-and-white T-shirt of Spelman College, the historically Black Atlanta school where she plans to spend the next four years.

Getting students to think about college sooner also could help them stay focused, some leaders say.

“We need to strengthen the college advising and college exposure,” said Patricia Brantley, chief executive of Friendship Public Charter School. Students enrolled there take college trips as early as during elementary grades. “At Friendship, we do a lot of dual-enrollment courses so that kids are showing that they can do college-level work while they are still in high school.”

The entire city has embraced <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/01/07/advanced-technical-center-dc-schools-attendance/" target=_blank>dual-enrollment </a>and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/03/27/dc-early-college-coolidge-trinity/" target=_blank>early-college programs</a> in recent years, particularly with the opening of the Advanced Technical Center in Northeast Washington. High-schoolers at the site can earn college credits toward degrees in nursing and cybersecurity. In her budget request, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) signaled plans to open a second site in Ward 8.

Getting more students through college may also mean expanding the definition of completion to include apprenticeships, certificates and professional credentials, said Derrick Anderson, senior vice president of Education Futures at the American Council on Education.

“It’s totally within the realm of possibility,” Anderson said about D.C.’s goal to raise the college graduation rate, but added that “I don’t think everyone needs a four-year degree and I don’t think everyone needs to be on a four-year degree pathway.”

Finances also remain a barrier for many students, experts said. D.C. kids can secure scholarships through DC-CAP and the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant, which pays students up to $10,000 each year to attend public universities outside the city and $2,500 to go to a District private school or private historically Black institution.

But they<b> </b>also are contending with the loss of DC Futures, which helped cover tuition for about 1,500 students at Trinity Washington, UDC and Catholic University. The program was funded with $12 million in federal pandemic relief that will expire this fall.

“$3 million, that’s just going to be gone by the end of the fall semester,” McGuire said, adding that 500 of her students used DC Futures funds to work toward degrees. “If students don’t know how they’re going to pay for this, they’re not going to finish.”

American University, MA journalism and public affairs

American University, BA public relations and strategic communication 

Lauren Lumpkin is a reporter at The Washington Post covering local schools. 

Lauren Lumpkin

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D.C. wants to raise college graduation rate to 80 percent by 2050

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 College Signing Day 2024

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