Dive Brief:

• A new report faults Vermont’s educational system for not focusing on postsecondary education, finding large county-to-county variations in the percentage of college-bound seniors.
• The report by the Vermont Student Assistance Corp. argues that, despite having one of the highest high school graduation rates in the nation, the state fails to provide consistent guidance to students for the transition to college.
• Mirroring national trends, in Vermont more high school females aspire to college than males, and the children of college-educated parents are much more likely to plan to attend college than the children of parents who haven’t attended.

Dive Insight:

According to the report, the percentage of Vermont public school students in free or reduced-price lunch programs — an indicator that correlates to lower college attendance rates — is growing, and projected to increase to 66% by 2030 from 40% in 2012. The report found that 74.8% of high school students in Vermont plan on going to college. For males whose parents did not attend college, only 55.3% aspired to college, while the number was 76.8% for the “first generation” females. For non-first-generation students, the college aspiration numbers were 89.6% for females and 82.4% for males.