N.Y.C. Study Finds Vouchers Boost Blacks' College-Going Rates

Receiving a voucher to attend a private school in New York City did not increase the likelihood of attending college for most students, but did increase college-going rates for black students, a study of participants in a privately funded scholarship program concludes.

Forty-two percent of 1,363 students who received vouchers through the New York School Choice Scholarship Fund and 42 percent of those who applied for but did not receive the tuition aid had enrolled in college within three years of their expected high school graduation date, according to the study , which is being presented this morning at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. It was co-written by Paul E. Peterson, a professor of government and the director of Harvard University’s Program on Education Policy and Governance, and Matthew M. Chingos, a fellow at Brookings’ Brown Center on Education Policy.

But African-American students who used the vouchers to attend a participating private school, most of which were Roman Catholic, were 8.7 percentage points, or 24 percent, more likely to attend college, and were twice as likely to attend a selective private university, as their peers who were not winners...