Major College-Going Gaps Found in Chicago

Study of city's graduates finds low grades thwart plans for higher education.

While most of Chicago’s high school seniors hope to attend college, the school system has a long way to go to make that vision a reality, according to a new report that is among the first to track the post-high-school experiences of graduates from a major urban district on a broad scale.

“From High School to the Future,” released last week by the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago, presents the first results from a multiyear project that is following the postsecondary experiences of graduates of the Chicago public school system and analyzing the relationships between high school preparation, college choices, and higher education outcomes.

The researchers found that grades in core classes matter more than scores on the ACT college-admissions test in predicting whether students enroll in and succeed in college, and that females are far more likely than their male peers...