DePaul's special mission with Chicago Public Schools
October 2006
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students have always found a home at DePaul. I am proud to say that DePaul is the largest university partner with CPS promoting college access and achievement. I had the pleasure of addressing CPS administrators about our current collaborative initiatives, in particular the College Bridge partnership.
Established in 1999, the CPS College Bridge program has provided a significant opportunity for qualified high school juniors and seniors to take courses at area colleges and universities. Students receive both high school and transferable college credit for one course each term. They take part in this program after their high school day is over and typically enroll in college courses in the evening, on Saturdays or during the summer.
In essence, the program provides free access to college-level classes for capable and motivated high school students—many of whom have limited opportunity to take advanced coursework in their own high schools. The cost is shared between CPS and participating universities.
More than 1,500 Bridge students have taken courses at DePaul over the past eight years. In 2005-06 alone, 171 students enrolled, taking 244 classes. The students come from over two-thirds of CPS high schools, and the vast majority are from low-income and first-generation college families. About 70 percent are students of color.
These students do very well in this rigorous coursework. Of the 127 seniors enrolled in 2005, 63 percent applied to DePaul, 70 percent were admitted and 65 percent enrolled.
DePaul is delighted to help these students pursue college educations. An average of 13 percent of our freshmen come from CPS—about 25 percent from Chicago as a whole. About a third of our freshmen are the first in their families to attend college and about 30 percent are eligible for the Pell grant, available only to the neediest families.
We have heard much over the years about the challenges facing public schools in general, and Chicago public schools in particular. In the spring of 2006, the Consortium on Chicago School Research published its report "From High School to the Future," which painted a fairly bleak picture of the college outcomes for CPS graduates, particularly in terms of baccalaureate attainment. But what the report affirmed was the importance of student performance in quality curricula as the most important predictor, not just of college access, but of degree completion.
College Bridge is so important to achieving DePaul's academic mission, as are other CPS efforts to extend access to high-quality curricula such as Advanced Placement and the International Baccalaureate. These are the kind programs that will help us bridge the gap between student aspiration and attainment in the city, and allow students to become full participants in— and beneficiaries of—today's knowledge society.
