A lot of us living and working on the coasts or parts of the Midwest or south on occasion fall into a trap thinking everyone who graduates high school goes on to college, at least it was that way when they were in school so the thinking goes. That's true to some extent, but there is a huge emphasis on regionality. It is absolutely true that college matriculation rates in certain areas are 90%+ but if you look it from a national perspective, it's a lot closer to 40%--and these are all-time high numbers btw. What keeping the numbers lower than most people expect. Well of course you have the ridiculously high cost, but beyond that, you have lower HS graduation rates in some very large markets. A report released today even caused me to pause for a moment and re-think. Only a quarter of the kids of Detroit public schools will graduate high school, yikes. It's not much better in other cites, it's 31% in Indianapolis and 34% in Cleveland. Perhaps the mega touted "No Child Left Behind" initiative might want to take a bit of a reality check, conveniently starting with these three Midwestern city school districts.
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