When Hope Chicago launched its college access initiative in five neighborhood high schools last year, the job ahead was clearly ambitious: Raise college-going rates for South and West side students of color in schools where, on average, just 57% of graduates enrolled in post-secondary education.
Compare that to, for example, Lincoln Park High School on the North Side, which boasts a college enrollment rate of 80%, or Illinois as a whole, at 64%.
Hope Chicago’s strategy was far-reaching, too. Led by former Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson, the nonprofit, founded by entrepreneur Pete Kadens and businessman Ted Koenig, would provide debt-free higher education to every student who graduated, regardless of their GPA.
“Kids from affluent families with a 2.0 GPA still go to college,” Jackson told the Editorial Board recently. “For poor kids, that’s likely to end their journey.”
Hope Chicago didn’t ask schools to change their admission requirements but did promise to provide graduates with full tuition at participating public and private Illinois institutions; a living stipend; and wraparound support to help them succeed once they were enrolled. Parents, too, could take advantage of free tuition if they wanted to earn a degree themselves.
When the program launched, Jackson spoke about expanding college access in the short term. But she also noted the importance of education as a crime-fighting strategy in low-income neighborhoods, something Chicago desperately needs.
“If we don’t address poverty, we’re not gonna address crime in this city,” Jackson said in March 2022. “Education is the best way to disrupt cycles of poverty.”
Time will tell if Hope Chicago will reduce crime in and around the struggling communities where the nonprofit is making its massive investment. But there are promising signs otherwise: A year later, college-going is up substantially, and an economist is projecting the long-term economic benefits will be substantial.
According to research on Hope Chicago that Jackson will unveil Monday at the City Club, the five high schools — Benito Juarez in Pilsen, Farragut in Little Village, Morgan Park High in Morgan Park on the far South Side, Al Raby in East Garfield Park and Noble Johnson in Englewood — have seen college-going soar to 74% for the Class of 2022.
Most of the hundreds of graduates now in college — 84% — are at four-year institutions; of those, 28% are at institutions ranked as “highly competitive.”
“We were intentional about going to [communities] where there needs to be more investment in people,” Jackson told us. “We went to open enrollment schools where kids get the message that college isn’t for them or that they can’t afford it. ... What we found is that when you remove the financial barriers, student behavior changes.”
The payoff for society
Research has shown that post-secondary education has clear economic benefits. College graduates usually land higher-paying jobs, tend to be healthier, are less likely to depend on public assistance and are less likely to become involved in the criminal justice system.
The new research on Hope Chicago, by economist Clive Belfield of Queens College at City University of New York, is yet more powerful evidence of the payoff: Every $1 invested in Hope Chicago will generate $4.20 in social and economic benefit.
Over time, the study projects, each Hope Chicago participant will generate from $214,720 to $364,340 in social benefit, plus an additional $67,560 to $112,620 in additional federal, state and city revenue.
“The big takeaway is that programs like this, which are intensive and highly resourced, can actually move the needle,” Belfield told us. “We know we have an access problem with college, and we have a success problem [in terms of students earning a degree]. We have to deal with both. There’s growing evidence that, if we do, it will pay off.”
“The city needs skilled workers, and these are the city’s future skilled workers,” he added.
The numbers help make the case for expanding college access, debt-free. But while programs like Hope Chicago are a boon to lower-income students, schools and communities, initiatives like it rely on philanthropy. Even at its most generous, that’s only part of the solution.
As a state and a nation, we ought to make higher education a top priority for our tax dollars. That ought to mean more state funding, which has declined over time, as well as reining in college costs overall.
Doing both will help young people, and taxpayers, reap the payoff.
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