These two trends, in combination, work to further widen the already wide and widening income disparities in the United States. It says that education is more important to the people of some states than it is in others. It says that some states have a far better understanding of the importance of education to the welfare of their citizens than do other states. In this analysis, chance for college is the product of the rate at which students graduate from public high schools times the rate at which all high school graduates continue their education in college the fall following graduation from high school. While both public high school graduation rates and college continuation rate data are presented in this analysis, we are mainly interested in their product.
Some states have high college continuation rates, but low high school graduation rates.
We believe these states have built education systems on weak foundations. Other states have stronger K-12 education systems than higher education systems. This too falls short far short of the unyielding labor market required requirement for college educated or trained workers. In fact, the states that rank in the top tier of the states on the measure of chance for college by age 19 do both well. They have both high rates of public high school graduation, as well as send these graduates off to college at high rates.