What do alumni of Detroit high schools
struggle with in college?
Introduction
Today, more and more, a college degree is the
best guarantee of a successful career and stable,
family-supporting income. Yet Detroit’s high
school graduates attend college at rates
significantly lower than their whiter, more
affluent peers, and struggle to persist through to
graduation.
Why is that? With what do our best and brightest
Detroit high school graduates, many of whom go
on to enroll at a four-year university, struggle?
With the support of the Berman Foundation,
Michigan Future Inc. worked with three Detroit
high schools—two charter and one public—to
administer a “book scholarship” program for
alumni to try to learn about what barriers these
students face. The high school’s alumni received
$100 in the spring of 2019 if they (1) sent a copy
of their transcript to their high school, and (2)
completed an online survey about their college
experience. Each high school reviewed
transcripts and survey responses, and analyzed
how their alumni were faring. In addition, we
provided a central analysis of certain data about
the students and compared their high school and
college performance. This report summarizes
the trends that emerged across the 133 students
that participated in the book scholarship across
all three high schools.
We learned important things about how high
schools can help their students be better
prepared for college, and how any youth-serving
organization (a school, or a youth development
group) could consider supporting Detroit’s high
school alumni for successful college careers.
Overall, this experience also emphasized the

importance of having access to data about how
alumni are doing; an institution designed to care
about how their students do at the next stage is
better able to learn how to improve.

Description of the Data
For the spring of 2018, we have data from 133
students who graduated high school in the years
2014-2017: 15 alumni who graduated in 2014, 25
who graduated in 2015, 37 who graduated in
2016, and 56 who graduated in 2017.
These students performed higher than Detroit
averages while in high school. The average high
school GPA for the entire sample was 3.23 and
the average ACT score was 18.9. (ACT defines 21
as college-ready.) It’s important to emphasize
that this report does not include students who
have dropped out of college.
They are currently enrolled in—or have
graduated from—primarily four-year colleges.
Two students are attending career/technical
education programs, 14 are enrolled in two-year
colleges, and the remaining 117 are at four-year
institutions. Five students from the class of 2014
have graduated: two from Alma, one from Paul
Quinn, and two from the University of
Michigan—Ann Arbor.
The qualitative survey that students completed
asked questions about their college study habits
(how often did they work with other students,
how many hours a week did they study, e.g.),
engagement on campus (have they attended a
social or cultural event on campus, have they
met with a faculty member to talk about their
courses, e.g.), and other obligations (work on or
off-campus, e.g.) and ways they spent their time.
The survey also asked students to reflect on their

What do alumni of Detroit high schools struggle with in college?

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 college experience—whether they feel they
belong, whether they feel supported, what
successes or challenges have they had—and on
whether their high school experience prepared
them for college. The survey questions were
designed to probe at areas where research
suggests students struggle. (For an overview of
that research and what it means for high school
design, see our College Success handbook.)
The high schools provided GPA and test score
data from high school to MFI, alongside GPA and
credit accumulation data from college. In
addition, each high school gave each one of their
alumni an “agency” score, on a scale of 1-4. This
agency score is a qualitative assessment of the
student’s character, mindsets, and habits—in
other words, a guess of the high school’s
confidence that the student “has what it takes”
to persist in college. This qualitative score was
not always assigned at the point of the student’s
high school graduation (for students who
graduated in previous years, schools were
instructed to think back and assign one
retroactively). Given the likelihood that the
agency score was not assigned in real time, it’s
not a scientific measure by any means—but still
interesting.

What High Schools Can Do
Differently
In surveys, students reported that they needed
additional support in four primary areas:
•
•
•
•

More rigorous coursework in high school to
prepare for college-level work.
Support developing successful academic
habits.
Training in financial literacy, especially—but
not only—in understanding financial aid.
Better cultural preparation, especially for
non-white students matriculating to
predominantly white institutions.

While overall, the students who participated in
this book scholarship program are doing well in

college, they do show slow rates of credit
accumulation. This should be a big concern to
high schools, colleges, and other organizations
that support young people. Taking too long to
finish college can increase the risks that
scholarship loss and of non-completion.

Rigor
All three high schools report that their students
wish high school had been “harder.” One student
quoted wrote, “no more worksheets.” Almost all
reported not feeling prepared for the significant
jump not just in the amount of work, but in the
intellectual challenge that they would be
expected to participate in in college. Students
surveyed suggested that schools structure their
classes more like college classes.
From an in-depth look at transcripts, one school
noted that their students are struggling with
math in particular. It was Michigan Future’s
observation that none of our high schools were
doing enough—simply by volume, before even
talking about quality—reading and writing, a
trend that the student surveys seem to confirm.

Academic Habits
Every school reported that its students are
engaging in some important academic
behaviors—seeking help, participating in class,
studying with peers—but across the board,
students are not studying enough. Students’ selfreported studying and class preparation time—
which research suggests should equal about 30
hours a week—fell far below those
recommendations. Students report spending
closer to ten hours doing classwork outside of
class. While this may be partly to do with
students’ outside responsibilities, such as
working or caring for dependents, the lack of
studying likely plays a big part in any nonsuccess
they’re having. Many graduates are doing less
than ten hours of work outside of class a week,
and report only spending an hour preparing for
class. Many students often going to class with
reading or assignments incomplete.

What do alumni of Detroit high schools struggle with in college?

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 One high school compared transcript data to
survey results and report that the students who
self-report the best academic habits (studying,
seeking help, using office hours, working with
peers, etc.) have the strongest GPAs.
In addition, one high school specifically reported
that their students need help changing their
practices around email. Most of them are not in
the habit of checking it daily, and aren’t naturally
adjusting to the fact that it’s a primary
communication tool in college, for assignments,
class info, and college-related announcements.
In their reports, schools recommend a range of
ways they can help students, from the creation
of “help centers” in high school that would mimic
tutoring labs provided by colleges, to changing
grading practices so that late work is accepted in
early grades but not in senior year, to partnering
with internships or other programs that can help
teach these skills.

Cultural Preparation
While students are not doing uniformly well at
historically black colleges and universities (in a
later section, we show that some HBCUs are
serving these students well, while others are
not), students do report struggling to adapt to a
predominantly white environment. Schools can
do a better job helping to realistically prepare
students for this adjustment, by building their
confidence and talking about the issue directly.
But as importantly, high schools can also work
with colleges to ensure that pre-college visits
and tours respond to student needs, helping
them understand the resources and options on
campus. For instance, high schools can ensure
that college multicultural offices and black
student associations are involved in a college
tour, or arrange other opportunities for their
students to learn about the resources they may
need, and spaces where they can feel
comfortable.

Student Agency

Financial Literacy
Students across the board report being
underprepared for managing their financial lives.
This naturally includes understanding how their
financial aid can be spent, when loan
repayments will start, what out-of-pocket costs
to anticipate, and what could risk losing a grant,
but also includes basic financial literacy for
anyone new to living independently. Students
need help understanding how to set themselves
up and act responsibly with bank accounts,
credit cards, and understanding taxes. As one
student suggested, “It's gonna always be about
money and financial support, but specifically
help me to understand all of the ins and outs of
financial aid offers and what every little cent
goes towards specifically.”
It’s difficult to assess to what extent this is
affecting student performance, but it certainly
creating student stress, and significant evidence
shows that financial barriers can contribute to
drop-out.

We asked schools to provide an entirely
qualitative score to each student based on their
impression of the student’s “agency.” We
describe this as including behaviors that show a
student has developed internal motivation, goal
orientation, persistence, self-advocacy skills, and
other behaviors that suggest they are able to “do
what it takes” to overcome hurdles. If the score
was not assigned at the time of high school
graduation, schools assigned it retroactively.
Table 1. College performance based on high-school assigned
"agency" score.

Overall
2
29 sts.
3
52 sts.
4
51 sts.

What do alumni of Detroit high schools struggle with in college?

Avg.
College
GPA
2.61

On-Track
for 5-Year
Graduation
48%

On-Track
for 4-Year
Graduation
18%

2.42

41%

7%

2.60

52%

13%

2.80

76%

43%

3

 Table 2. College performance based on high school GPA.

Not surprisingly, displays of the type of character
and habits that might lead to a higher agency
assessment are also likely to be tied to academic
performance in high school (high school GPA and
ACT also tend to rise with agency scores). It’s
impossible to entirely disentangle these factors,
but as shown in Table 1, above, certainly the
agency score seems to be a meaningful predictor
of college performance.
In Table 1 and the tables that follow, whether a
student is “on-track” for four- or five-year
graduation is based on two measures: whether
the student has a GPA of 2.0 or higher, and has
completed an average of 15 credits a semester
for four-year graduation, or 12 credits a
semester for five-year graduation.

High School Performance and
College Readiness
As we turn now to student performance data,
attempting to understand what matters for
student success in college, we will be looking at
high school GPA, ACT score, and a collegereadiness score that can be generated for each
student that combines GPA and ACT.

GPA
Research suggests that by serving as a reflection
of a student’s academic behaviors—participating
in class, submitting homework, studying, and
other displays of effort and engagement—GPA is
the most predictive indicator of a student’s
ability to persist in college.
Other research has shown GPA is a strong
predictor of college persistence—the strongest
of the quantitative measures of high school
performance. As high school GPAs rise (Table 2),
we see higher and higher college GPAs and ontrack rates of credit accumulation.

Avg.
College
GPA
Overall

2.61

On-Track
for
5-Year
Graduation
48%

On-Track
for
4-Year
Graduation
18%

< 2.50
10 sts.
2.50-2.99
27 sts.
3.00-3.49
51 sts.
3.50 or +
45 sts.

2.23

40%

0%

2.32

37%

7%

2.68

61%

24%

2.86

76%

38%

In addition, we see a strong correlation factor
between high school and college GPA (0.4).

ACT
Of course, if students lack basic content
knowledge, college becomes increasingly
difficult. We include the student’s best ACT (or
SAT converted to ACT) score in our analysis. The
average ACT score for our sample was 19.
Table 3. College performance based on students' highest
ACT scores while in high school.

Overall
< 17
36 sts.
17-18
34 sts.
19-20
20 sts.
21-23
26 sts.
24 or +
16 sts.

Avg.
College
GPA
2.61

On-Track for
5-Year
Graduation
48%

On-Track for
4-Year
Graduation
18%

2.35

42%

8%

2.52

53%

24%

2.72

65%

20%

2.91

81%

31%

2.96

69%

50%

Given the relatively strong correlation between
high school GPA and ACT scores (at schools
designed to prioritize test-taking), it is not
surprising that some of the same effects are
observed between ACT and college performance

What do alumni of Detroit high schools struggle with in college?

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 and GPA and college performance. That said, the
correlation between ACT and college GPA is
lower than that between high school GPA and
college GPA.
While GPA is the stronger predictor of college
performance, ACT does indicate some content
readiness, and students below a certain
threshold struggle more to succeed.

College Readiness Score
In addition to looking at GPA and ACT
independently, we use a college-readiness score
whose formula was provided to us by Alma
College (they use this formula in their admissions
process). Their formula essentially gives equal
weight to a standardized test score and high
school GPA. They find that a score of over 65
tends to lead to college persistence.
Table 4. College performance based on Alma collegereadiness score (a combined look at GPA and ACT).

Overall
< 55
15 sts.
55-60
20 sts.
60-65
22 sts.
65-70
24 sts.
70-75
28 sts.
> 75
24 sts.

Avg.
College
GPA
2.61

On-Track for
5-Year
Graduation
48%

On-Track for
4-Year
Graduation
18%

2.21

33%

7%

2.48

40%

10%

2.32

36%

5%

2.73

63%

21%

2.83

86%

39%

3.01

75%

46%

The Alma score that we first used when assessing
high school progress with our former program,
Michigan Future Schools, continues to be
relevant today. The above table shows that
college GPAs generally (though not perfectly)
trend upward with Alma score, and that students
below a 65 in their Alma score have a large drop
in on-track credit accumulation rates. Above an

Alma score of 70, we see high rates of on-track
college performance.

Differences Between Colleges
In this data, we have students attending 38
different post-secondary institutions. There are
14 schools being attended by three or more
students in the data set. For those students, we
can see some clear trends (Table 5). Generally,
this data demonstrates the importance of
avoiding undermatching—attending a less
selective school than one is qualified for—
whenever possible. Higher selectivity schools
have higher rates of both five-year and four-year
“on-track” graduation rates, indicating that
students there are achieving a minimum GPA of
2.0 and making sufficient credit progress.
To take three schools, by way of example, Wayne
State University, Western Michigan University,
and the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor each
have seven or eight students that participated in
the book scholarship program. At Wayne, no
students are on-track to graduate in four years,
and 57.1 percent are on-track to graduate in five
years. At Western, 20 percent may graduate in
four years, but a total of 71.4 percent are ontrack to graduate in five years. At U of M, 62.5
percent of students are on-track to graduate in
four years, and 87.5 are on track to graduate in
five years. As high schools have more experience
with sending their students to college, they
should continue to learn which schools are
providing the right environment and support to
help students be successful.
For the most part, there is not a huge difference
in student GPAs, which suggests that students
aren’t failing more at one school than another.
Rather, how colleges help students enroll in and
complete the right credits makes the difference.
An interesting future question would be to layer
these results against data about persistence at
these colleges. Again, the students sampled
herein are still enrolled and so provide only one
lens for considering how the colleges are doing.

What do alumni of Detroit high schools struggle with in college?

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 Table 5. Student performance at those colleges with three or more students in the sample.

Average
Cumulative GPA

On-Track for 5Year Grad

On-Track for 4Year Grad.

3.28

100.0%

33.3%

2.27

61.5%

15.4%

2.96

100.0%

80.0%

2.93

80.0%

40.0%

2.62

40.0%

20.0%

2.41

66.7%

33.3%

2.38

66.7%

0.0%

2.21

33.3%

0.0%

2.50

48.1%

14.8%

2.78

87.5%

62.5%

2.91

57.1%

0.0%

2.98

71.4%

20.0%

Alabama A & M University
3 students
Albion
13 students
Alma
5 students
Central State Univ.
5 students
Central Michigan Univ.
10 students
Eastern Michigan Univ.
3 students
Ferris State
3 students
Grand Valley
3 students
Michigan State
27 students
Univ. of Michigan-Ann Arbor
8 students
Wayne State Univ.
7 students
Western Michigan Univ.
7 students

Conclusion
From this data sample, the greatest risk for this
tier of alumni seems to be ensuring higher rates
of credit accumulation, ensuring they can
graduate before financial aid is lost. To that end,
a next research question for schools is to explore
the tie between studying and class preparation
habits, course rigor, and course completion.
Understanding why students aren’t completing a
full course load and helping them to do so seems
like a high priority for preventing students from
failing to earn a degree after five years in school.
The fact that getting alumni to complete the
book scholarship was a larger lift for high schools

than anticipated suggests, again, that the
students reflected in this sample are performing
at the top end of their graduates. There may be
other interventions necessary for students who
have additional barriers or were less prepared.
But understanding the challenges that the bestprepared alumni face in college persistence and
completion is worth doing. High schools can use
this data both to inform the design of their high
school, helping kids to build the skills that they
will need for college success, and to better
counsel students about their college pathway.
Whether in a form like this “book scholarship” or
some other mechanism, keeping in touch with
alumni—and having access to transcript data
about how they are doing—is a vital learning
strategy for high schools.

What do alumni of Detroit high schools struggle with in college?

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 Michigan Future, Inc. is a non-partisan, non-profit organization.
Our mission is to be a source of new ideas on how Michigan can
succeed as a world class community in a knowledge-driven
economy. Our goal is to be a catalyst for recreating a high
prosperity Michigan. From 2009-2016, Michigan Future ran
Michigan Future Schools, a high school accelerator whose goal
was to substantially increase the proportion of Detroit students
graduating from high school prepared to persist through college
and achieve a college degree.
MFI established as its primary metric our 85/85/85 goal: 85
percent of students at its high schools will graduate from high
school, of those graduates at least 85 percent will enroll in
college, and of those who enroll at least 85 percent will earn a
college degree. From inception to wind-down, MFS held this high
bar for its schools.

Our thanks to the Mandell and Madeline Berman Foundation,
whose funding made this book scholarship program possible.

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