PUSD Sends 86% of Graduates to College Right Away

Nearly 86 percent of Poway Unified School District graduates move right on to college somewhere in the United States—the highest rate in San Diego County and above the state average of 74.4 percent—according to a new report released Thursday.

"In a knowledge-based economy, college and career training are becoming the price of admission to the job market, so it's good to see so many California graduates taking the next step on the path to success," State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said in a statement.

The new post-secondary transition report covers California high school graduates from the 2008-9 school year, using for the first time a statewide system that tracks individual students. Student data was matched with enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC), a nonprofit that verifies student degrees and enrollment.

The data comes with several blind-spots that could obscure additional students who went on to college, including students who opt out of having their post-secondary information released and students at the 7 percent of colleges and universities who are not included in the NSC database.

With these caveats in mind, the data reveals that 85.7 percent of PUSD graduates from the 2008-9 school year enrolled in a community college, four-year university or technical school within 16 months of graduation. Asian PUSD students had the highest college-going rate at 88.5 percent, just ahead of Pacific Islander students (86.7 percent) and white students (86.3 percent).

Of the district's four traditional high schools (Del Norte only graduates its first class this year), Westview High had the highest college-going rate at 90.5 percent, slightly ahead of Rancho Bernardo High at 88.2 percent. PUSD's continuation school—Abraxas High—sent 56 percent of its students off to college in the 16 months after graduation.

Countywide, 68.9 percent of students moved onto college in that time frame. For the San Diego Unified School District, the rate was 73.2 percent, just below the state average. Coronado Unified, at 85.6 percent, fell just shy of PUSD's county-leading rate.

State officials on Thursday also released a report detailing how many students from the class of 2007 moved on to state community colleges, California State University (CSU) and University of California (UC) schools. That reports shows about three out of five PUSD students going to California schools, though this does not include private and technical schools.

*Source: California Department of Education