Study finds region lacking in producing college students

The Inland Empire isn’t producing enough college graduates.

That’s the conclusion of a recent report by the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank in San Francisco.

Despite the economic benefits that usually accompany a bachelor’s degree – higher salary, better chance of staying employed, higher quality of life – relatively few Inland high school students go on to college after graduation compared with the rest of California, according to Pathways to College Completion in the Inland Empire.

Some of the study’s findings include:

• No more than one-quarter of the high school freshmen in Riverside and San Bernardino counties are likely to attend a four-year college or university and earn a bachelor’s degree. Statewide, that number is about one-third;
• Only 25 percent of Inland Empire students enroll in a four-year college immediately after they graduate high school. Less than one-third who go to a community college intending to transfer to a four-year institution do so within six years;
• The Inland Empire’s college-going rate is 57 percent, one of the lowest of any major region in California. The statewide rate is 65 percent, and in some districts the college-going rate is as high as 70 percent.

College-going is the percentage of high school graduates who enroll in higher education within a specific period after graduation, usually 12 to 16 months. It’s considered an accurate gauge of college access in a specific region.

Inland students who come from a low-income family are about 50 percent less likely to attend college than those who come from a higher-income family. Black and Latino ninth graders in the Inland region are less likely to enroll in, or graduate from, college than their white or Asian classmates.

The study also found that a college degree gives Inland Empire residents a leg up, like it does anywhere else.

On average, people from the Inland region who have a bachelor’s degree and who are starting their careers earn nearly 40 percent more than those who have only a high school diploma. Workers with a graduate degree earn close to 60 percent more.

Those are significant numbers, but they aren’t persuading a lot of Inland students into pursing higher education. Only 18 percent off the region’s young adults, defined as 23 to 34 years old, have a bachelor’s degree, and only six percent have a graduate degree.

Statewide, those numbers are 30 percent and 12 percent, respectively.

The Inland region has well-paying jobs that don’t require a college degree, which is probably one reason why the region doesn’t produce as many college graduates as most of the state’s other major metropolitan areas.

“The labor market in the Inland Empire leans toward workers without degrees, in particular jobs in health care, transportation and warehousing,” the report states. “For this reason, regional stakeholders (believe) that Inland Empire students may be less motivated to attend college.”

One local academic agreed with that assessment.

“There are a lot of high-paying jobs that don’t require a college education, but they do require skills and a good work ethic,” said Jay Prag, professor of economics at the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University. “Construction jobs, electricians, plumbers and contractors are all paid well. People who grasp that often end up with a better income trajectory, and have a better sense of what jobs are available.”

That the Inland Empire produces fewer college graduates compared with other submarkets doesn’t harm the local economy.

“It doesn’t mean a thing,” Prag said. “As long as you graduate from high school, and you acquire skills in the so-called college-age years that allow you to be gainfully employed, it doesn’t matter. A master electrician will make more money than someone with a bachelor’s degree in psychology at the start of their career.

In other words, not everyone needs a college degree.

“I think we misinterpret the importance of a college degree for a happy and successful life,” Prag said. “But I don’t disagree with the report’s findings, I think it lines up closely with what we know about the Inland Empire.”

The report, which was compiled by a six-member team and took about one year to complete is not entirely negative.

More Inland Empire students who enroll at a Cal State or a University of California school out of high school are graduating in six years than was there was a decade ago. Also, Inland students who transfer into either of those systems from a community college graduate in six years at about the same rate as students from the rest of California.

The institute decided to examine the Inland Empire because its percentage of college-bound students is low for an area with a population of 4.7 million, said Hans Johnson, a research fellow with the institute.

One of the report’s findings – that 26 percent of high school freshmen in the Inland Empire are on a trajectory to attend a four-year college or university compared with 35 percent statewide – is especially revealing, according to Johnson.

“High school graduation rates are higher in the Inland Empire than they are in the rest of the state, which is good news,” Johnson said. “But then we have a nine percent difference regarding college students, which is substantial. That’s a lot of college students and a lot of college degrees.”

That trend can be changed over time, Johnson believes.

“There’s a lot of opportunity for growth,” said Johnson, a member of the research team that compiled the inland Empire report. “Most students who enter a community college have transferring to a four-year college as their goal, but most of them don’t reach that goal.  If that can be changed even a few percentage points it would make a big difference.”