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High School Grads Better Prepared For College, But Poverty Gap Persists

Dave Herholz
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https://www.flickr.com/photos/dherholz/

A report out this week finds improvement for the number of Indiana high school graduates ready for college. However, the state Commission for Higher Education says the achievement gap for poor and minority students persists.

The commission's annual Indiana College Readiness report found 82 percent of Hoosier students who enrolled in college in 2014 were prepared for coursework -- an improvement of five percentage points.

Higher education commissioner Teresa Lubbers says trends are moving in the right direction, including gains for poor and minority students to graduate and attend college.

“We saw a higher improvement rates in our low income, minority and first generation students," she says. "They actually outpaced the growth that we saw across populations. Now, I don’t want to be misunderstand. As I said, the achievement gap is still clearly there.”

Nearly three times the number of students who don’t qualify for free or reduced lunch -- an indicator for poverty -- attend college than students who do quality.

This year’s report also has a new online dashboard to compare multiple years of data. 

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