Digging Deeper: Education Attainment, Louisville Metro
Fixing the leaks in Louisville’s education pipeline requires change all along its length. Digging deeper into the data illuminates the challenge. In 1990, more than a quarter of Louisville’s adults had dropped out of high school, and there were many more of them than college graduates. Today the reverse is true: more than a quarter of Louisville’s adults are college graduates, and, the proportion with less than a high school education has fallen to 14%.
Too many young people still drop out of high school: one in four from the Jefferson County Public Schools, including a disproportionate number of boys and African Americans. The rate of progress in postsecondary attainment has slowed in this decade, and Louisville’s education levels remain low compared to its peer cities. More than 40% of the 377,000 white adults age 25 and older and more than half of the 82,000 African Americans in Louisville lack any postsecondary education.
More alarming: Based on three years of data from the American Community Survey, 30% of white adults held a bachelor’s degree or higher, but only 13% of African Americans did – the lowest among Louisville’s 15 peer cities. The racial gap in college attainment has widened since 1990, although the percentage of African Americans with either an associate’s degree or some college has increased.
Overall, graduating appears to be more of a challenge for Louisville residents who enter college than their peer city counterparts: it ranked fourth from the bottom in the percentage of white residents who attended college and also graduated and last in the percentage among African American residents.
Digging Deeper: Education Attainment, Louisville Metro
Fixing the leaks in Louisville’s education pipeline requires change all along its length. Digging deeper into the data illuminates the challenge. In 1990, more than a quarter of Louisville’s adults had dropped out of high school, and there were many more of them than college graduates. Today the reverse is true: more than a quarter of Louisville’s adults are college graduates, and, the proportion with less than a high school education has fallen to 14%.
Too many young people still drop out of high school: one in four from the Jefferson County Public Schools, including a disproportionate number of boys and African Americans. The rate of progress in postsecondary attainment has slowed in this decade, and Louisville’s education levels remain low compared to its peer cities. More than 40% of the 377,000 white adults age 25 and older and more than half of the 82,000 African Americans in Louisville lack any postsecondary education.
More alarming: Based on three years of data from the American Community Survey, 30% of white adults held a bachelor’s degree or higher, but only 13% of African Americans did – the lowest among Louisville’s 15 peer cities. The racial gap in college attainment has widened since 1990, although the percentage of African Americans with either an associate’s degree or some college has increased.
Overall, graduating appears to be more of a challenge for Louisville residents who enter college than their peer city counterparts: it ranked fourth from the bottom in the percentage of white residents who attended college and also graduated and last in the percentage among African American residents.