CPS graduation rate rises to 83.4%, but report finds fewer than half of college-goers finish in six years

Chicago Public Schools said 83.4% of the class of 2026 graduated on time, up almost 1 percentage point from the year before and the second annual increase in a row.^{1, 2} Two days later, a report on the same district’s graduates found that fewer than half of those who went directly to college finished a degree or certificate within six years.²

CPS CEO Macquline King announced the graduation figures Wednesday at Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center in North Park, Chalkbeat Chicago reported.¹ The rate has risen by almost 10 percentage points since 2018, with dips along the way, especially after the pandemic, according to Chalkbeat.¹ The district’s highest on-time rate was nearly 85%, in 2023, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.²

“In our district, the question used to be, ‘Are you going to college?’” King said, according to Chalkbeat.¹ “These days, the question tends to have another word attached.”¹

Getting to college

Of the class of 2025, 67% enrolled in college right after high school, up from 58% a decade earlier and above the national average, the Sun-Times reported.² More than 57% of the class of 2026 earned college credit or a career certificate before graduating, 10 percentage points more than four years earlier, according to the Sun-Times.²

Chalkbeat noted that its earlier reporting found the growth in dual-credit courses has had mixed effects on college enrollment and persistence at some schools.¹

Finishing college

The report released Friday by the To&Through Project and the UChicago Consortium on School Research followed the class of 2019.² Of those graduates who went straight to college, 48% earned a credential within six years, compared with 64% nationally, the Sun-Times reported.²

Among those who started at a four-year college, 56% finished within six years; among those who started at a two-year college, 32% did, according to the report.² Those rates have barely changed in four years, the Sun-Times reported.²

Young men finished at much lower rates than young women in every racial and ethnic group, and fewer than one-third of young Black and Latino men earned a bachelor’s degree within six years, according to the report.²

“We had some community areas in the city of Chicago with high school graduation rates of 25%,” said Dominique McKoy, executive director of the To&Through Project, describing the district’s past, according to the Sun-Times.² In 2000, fewer than half of CPS students graduated within four years, the paper reported.²

Context

Chronic absenteeism, defined as missing more than 10% of school days, rose after the pandemic and has hovered around 40%, Chalkbeat reported.¹ A previous Chalkbeat and WBEZ investigation found that officials have given students more chances to make up missed work or classes, according to Chalkbeat.¹

Graduation rates for individual schools had not been released when Chalkbeat published its report.¹ At Von Steuben, where the announcement was held, CPS said the rate dipped to 93.7% for the class of 2026 after more than 96% in 2025.¹