The long-term impact of KIPP on college enrollment and persistence

By Nathan Storey, Johns Hopkins University

The Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) network of public elementary, middle, and high school-level charter schools is the nation’s largest. While there is data on student academic achievement in KIPP schools, there is less research on its impact on longer-term outcomes, such as enrollment, persistence, and attainment at the college level. A recent study by Demers and colleagues seeks to change that.

Using a randomized controlled trial design ensuring that students offered admission to a KIPP middle school were similar to those not receiving an offer on characteristics including prior test scores, motivation levels, and parental support, the researchers sought to examine the impact of KIPP middle schools on student enrollment and persistence in a four-year college during the first three years after high school graduation. Demers and her colleagues tracked 2,066 students who partook in a lottery  to enter grade 5 or grade 6 at 21 oversubscribed KIPP middle schools across multiple states during  the 2008–2009 to  2011–2012 school years..

The study found that KIPP middle schools had a positive but not statistically significant effect on college enrollment (p = +0.12), when comparing those who received an admission offer to those who did not. In addition, students’ college persistence rate (p = +0.78) and graduation rate (p =+ 0.99) were similar to those who did not receive KIPP middle school admissions offers. However, the authors noted that students who attended both a KIPP middle and high school were 30.5 percentage points more likely to enroll in a four-year college (p < 0.000), almost 20 percentage points more likely to persist in college for at least three years (p < 0.000), and 18.9 percentage points more likely to graduate from a four-year college (p = 0.025). They noted that these college attainment rates exceed the gaps among Black and Hispanic students compared to White students in the United States.

These findings suggest that it is not enough to just receive an admission offer to KIPP middle school, or to just attend a KIPP middle school. The stronger effects of attending a KIPP middle and high school are potentially connected to college preparatory culture development efforts and college-related supports that are focused more centrally at KIPP high schools. These include rigorous coursework for all students, college counselors paired with every KIPP high school student, and financial aid application and precollege summer program identification supports.