Less than a quarter of Houston ISD’s Black and Hispanic high school graduates in the Class of 2018 earned college degrees in six years , a rate the district’s academic leaders have called unacceptable and a severe crisis that has left thousands of underserved students unprepared for success in the workforce.
In total, about 29% of HISD students who graduated in 2018 earned college degrees, up slightly from 28% the year before, although the overall districtwide rate of students graduating college masks large disparities in postsecondary outcomes by race, income and high school.
HISD’s white students in the Class of 2018 were more than twice as likely to earn college degrees in six years compared to the district’s Black and Hispanic students. Asian students were approximately three times as likely to do so, according to district-provided data on graduation rates…