Of the 45% of Fort Worth students who enrolled in a Texas higher education institution, 14% went on to earn a Bachelor’s degree within six years of graduating.

FORT WORTH, Texas — A new report reveals sobering data on the state of education in Fort Worth.

Of all the eighth graders who enrolled in a Texas public school in Fort Worth, 78% went on to graduate from high school, and just 19% went on to earn a 2- or 4-year degree from a Texas college within six years of graduating.

That’s according to a new report from the Fort Worth Education Partnership using data from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

The report uses data from the cohort of students who attended eighth grade at a public middle school in the city of Fort Worth from 2011 to 2013. Those kids would have gone on to graduate from high school in 2016 and 2017.

“The low number of Fort Worth young adults who are attaining a 2- or 4-year degree represents a civic and moral crisis,” said Brent Beasley, president and CEO of the Fort Worth Education Partnership.


Of the 45% of Fort Worth students who enrolled in a Texas higher education institution, 14% went on to earn a Bachelor’s degree within six years of graduating, and 5% earned an Associate’s degree, the data shows.

That’s less than half the statewide average, according to data from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Statewide, 35% of Texas high school graduates who sought higher education in-state went on to earn a Bachelor’s degree, data shows. About 10% of those same students went on to earn an Associate’s degree.

Attainment of a degree or certification has a major, long-term impact on the lives of students, the report states. Young adults without some kind of secondary education or certification have just a 12% chance of earning a living wage, the report states.

The median bachelor’s degree holder earns $32,000 more annually than the median worker with a high school diploma, and that gap widens over time, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

“For many of our students, the difference between struggling to get by and achieving economic security often comes down to whether they receive the education that leads to a living wage and success beyond high school,” the report states. “We share these outcomes not as data points, but as a call to action for our community’s future.”


The broader picture

All eyes are currently on Fort Worth ISD as the Texas Education Agency (TEA) weighs whether the district should be taken out of local control.

The Texas Education Code requires the TEA to either close the campus or take over the district and install a new board. TEA commissioner Mike Morath said he will decide on the fate of Fort Worth ISD sometime in the next three months.

However, the education landscape of Fort Worth is much broader than Fort Worth ISD. The district serves 68% of the city’s school-age population, and the city’s land area is within the jurisdiction of 15 other independent school districts.

Of the 11,000 students who graduated from a Fort Worth ISD high school, 52% went on to enroll in a Texas higher education program, data shows.

Of those kids, 27% went on to earn a four-year degree and 10% went on to earn a two-year degree.

The report also includes the higher education attainment rate for every high school in Tarrant County. Just seven high schools in Tarrant County had a rate of four-year degree attainment that is higher than the state average.

  • Carroll Senior High School
  • Colleyville Heritage High School
  • Grapevine High School
  • Keller High School
  • Mansfield High School
  • Mansfield Legacy High School
  • Westlake Academy

“Most of our children in Fort Worth will not progress their education beyond high school, and many will not make it to high school graduation,” Beasley wrote. “That means the door is closing on the opportunities available to them to access the lives they want and deserve.”