{"id":140115,"date":"2025-08-12T16:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T16:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/140115\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T16:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T16:36:10","slug":"more-philly-students-say-they-plan-to-go-to-college-but-dont-matriculate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/140115\/","title":{"rendered":"More Philly students say they plan to go to college but don\u2019t matriculate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia\u2019s free newsletter<\/a> to keep up with the city\u2019s public school system.<\/p>\n

At the end of each school year, school officials in Philadelphia ask graduating seniors what they plan to do after high school.<\/p>\n

Thousands report that they plan to go to college.<\/p>\n

But when the fall rolls around, hundreds of those students do not end up matriculating in a postsecondary program, according to a new report<\/a> from the School District of Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

District data shows that the phenomenon, called \u201csummer melt,\u201d has increased in recent years. In the Class of 2024, 40% of students who initially planned to go to college did not follow through on their plans, according to the district\u2019s research, marking an increase of 10 percentage points from 2016.<\/p>\n

In the report, district researchers say that\u2019s important information for guidance counselors, school leaders, and college readiness partners to be aware of as they support students in completing tasks required for college matriculation.<\/p>\n

But a major challenge, according to some advocates, is that the requirements and costs of matriculation can overwhelm students over the summer when they lose many of their school-based supports. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just so many young people that say, \u2018This is way too much work,\u2019 and it is \u2026 it\u2019s an absurd amount of work,\u201d said Bryan DeFoney, vice president of programs at the Philadelphia Education Fund. \u201cIf you have never navigated this, it feels like a Herculean task for a young person to complete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around 44% of Philadelphia high school seniors in the Class of 2024 matriculated at a postsecondary institution last fall, according to district data.<\/p>\n

DeFoney oversees federally funded programs in several public Philadelphia high schools that help support students to graduate and access postsecondary education. In his work with teens, he said he\u2019s seen students who are initially interested in attaining a degree after high school get frustrated by the bureaucratic hoops they must jump through over the summer, or choose instead to work fulltime.<\/p>\n

Problems with the financial aid system<\/a> during the past two years have added to those challenges, DeFoney said. Since the pandemic, he said he has also noticed fewer students are interested in going to college.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entire tone around the college-going culture has just shifted, because school became optional for a lot of young people,\u201d DeFoney said. \u201cPart of our work is we try to help families and students understand why that investment is still worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Philadelphia district\u2019s analysis found that students who were male, English learners, or receiving special education services were more likely not to go to college after graduation even though they said they intended to.<\/p>\n

Students who intended to matriculate at a four-year college were consistently more likely to matriculate than those intending to attend community colleges or other two-year institutions.<\/p>\n

Nationally, between 10% and 40% of students who aim to enroll in college do not immediately do so after graduation, according to research from the Harvard Center for Education Policy Research<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rebecca Redelmeier is a reporter at Chalkbeat Philadelphia. She writes about public schools, early childhood education, and issues that impact students, families, and educators across Philadelphia. Contact Rebecca at rredelmeier@chalkbeat.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia\u2019s free newsletter to keep up with the city\u2019s public school system. At the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":140116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,83731,83730,16303,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-140115","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-caps-and-gowns","10":"tag-frankford-high-school","11":"tag-graduation","12":"tag-pa","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-philadelphia","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115016773394585055","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}