How do Merced County high schools compare for sending graduates to college? See the data
A Sun-Star analysis of education data sheds light on how local public high schools rank for sending graduates to college and where those students are pursuing their higher education.
The analysis comes from a review of Class of 2020 enrollment numbers from California State University and University of California databases. Officials and educators at Merced College, Modesto Junior College, and every public high school district in the county also sent information.
The Merced County high school that sent the highest percentage of its graduates to college in 2020 was Hilmar High, at 70.9%. The school had a total graduating class of 172 students.
The second highest college-bound students in the county came from Le Grand High at 69.2% of 127 graduating seniors, followed by Gustine High, at 67.24% of 116 graduating seniors.
Buhach Colony sent about 63% of 448 graduating seniors from the class of 2020 to college, followed by El Capitan High (60.9% of 392 graduating seniors) and Merced High (60.2% of 377 graduating seniors).
Livingston High followed at 57.2% of 304 graduating seniors, Golden Valley High at 57% of 424 graduating seniors, Delhi High at 50.9% of 159 graduating seniors and Atwater at 49.7% of 406 graduating seniors.
Additionally, Los Banos High saw 48.8% of 268 graduating seniors head to college. Pacheco High had 46.8% of 395 graduating seniors, and Dos Palos High had 32.3% of 130 graduating seniors go to college.
For comparison, the high school graduation rates for the Class of 2020 stand at 98.8% for Delhi High, 90.9% for Dos Palos High, 95.9% for Gustine High, 98.9% for Hilmar High, 94.1% for Le Grand High, 94.4% for Los Banos High, 94.9% for Pacheco High, 97.1% for Atwater High, 97.8% for Buhach Colony High, 97.8% for El Capitan High, 94.2% for Golden Valley High, 99% for Livingston High and 95.2% for Merced High, according to the California Department of Education’s high school graduation rate database.
When asked what could be behind the high number of its graduates heading to college, Le Grand Union School District officials pointed out Le Grand High has campus programs that help prepare students for college study.
”We have a couple of academies on campus — one is our medical academy, and it has its own counselors to work with kids to make sure they’re on track to go to college, and the other is the ag academy, which also has the counselors,” said Donna Alley, Le Grand Union High School District superintendent.
“Out of that 2020 class, there were probably about 45 kids in those two academies.”
Many students staying local
Data shows many college-bound high school graduates from Merced County’s school districts stay close to home, with most going on to a California State University campus, while others attend a University of California school. A small handful attend private colleges both in California and out-of-state.
The colleges with the most local high school graduates are all local institutions — UC Merced, Stanislaus State and Fresno State were the top three respectively.
Meanwhile, Sacramento State, UC Davis and Chico State emerged as the next three most popular state colleges for Merced County high school graduates to attend.
The trends are parallel with what some high school counselors in Merced County have seen. “Here, our kids are very family-focused,” said Norma Maciel, a counselor at Le Grand High School. “They stay local. There are very few who will leave the area.”
There are other reasons for why many local students choose to stay local. Dustin Noji, admissions director at UC Merced, said a good portion of Merced County students may be first generation college students who feel some economic obligations toward their families.
“They feel the need to contribute to their family and take care of things at home,” Noji explained. “The cost is always an issue, especially since the income levels for our area is generally going to be a much higher expense to go someplace out of the area. It may be a major factor in their choice to stay locally.”
Noji said the COVID-19 pandemic also played a role in where local students from the Class of 2020 chose to continue their education.
“You also have to take COVID into consideration, maybe some things folks are experiencing related to COVID and they’re not so safe traveling so far away from home. Other things have come up because of that, too,” he said. “That’s a brand-new factor we haven’t necessarily felt before, but it’s part of the equation now.”
Merced College, with two campuses and a wide variety of programs countywide, unsurprisingly sends the most number of transfer students to four-year universities immediately surrounding the area.
The top three schools for local community college transfer students are Stanislaus State, Fresno State and UC Merced, in that order.
After Fresno State, the next two most popular CSU campuses to transfer to were Sacramento State and San Jose State.
For Merced-area community college students, the two next most popular UC campuses to transfer were UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis.
Junior college attractive to many local students
Notably, almost every Merced County high school sent significantly more students from the Class of 2020 to a junior college first.
Merced College enrolled a total of 1,419 students from Merced County high schools in the fall of 2020, according to numbers submitted from Merced College representatives.
The most students came from Merced High, El Capitan High, Atwater High, Buhach Colony High, Golden Valley High and Pacheco High, in that order.
Each of those high schools sent well over 100 students each to Merced College in fall 2020.
Modesto Junior College, because of its relatively close proximity to the Merced area, enrolled 87 students from high schools in Merced County in the fall 2020, according to Modesto Junior College officials.
Reasons abound for why junior college is a popular option for so many Merced-area high school graduates. “They maybe haven’t figured out what they want to do yet, and there’s the financial aspect,” said Sam Yniguez, public information officer for the Merced Union High School District.
Yniguez also pointed out two years of free college is a strong incentive for many students, especially considering average college graduates had more than $30,000 in student loan debt in 2020, according to U.S. News & World Report.
The California College Promise program, which was launched by California in 2016, gives free tuition for two years to first-time, first-year California residents who attend a community college in the state.
Other students, such as first-generation college students or students from disadvantaged backgrounds, might not know they’re eligible for certain types of financial aid. “Students aren’t always aware of the financial aid they can get at a four-year institution,” said Brandon Price, Stanislaus State associate vice president for student success.
“The majority of our students are Pell (grant)-eligible, so not knowing that information, students believe, ‘I can’t afford to go straight to a four-year college.’ Part of that is the reason why I think we have a lot of students who go to a community college before they go to a four-year college is because of that misunderstanding of that financial aid element.”
Are students on track to attend college?
Some educators and university officials attribute the high community college-going rate to some Merced-area students not taking classes that put them on track to be offered admission to a four-year college right after graduation.
“They just haven’t taken the coursework in high school that allows them to be eligible to go to four-year institutions,” said Charles Nies, vice chancellor for student affairs at UC Merced.
That coursework, which educators refer to as the “A-G quadrant,” is a series of classes high school students have to take to be eligible for admission to a CSU or UC campus.
It is sometimes the default curriculum for high schools, Nies said — this includes math, science, English, history and social science, art, foreign languages and elective classes — that are considered college prep classes.
“It’s not necessarily that they’re not ready to go and transition to a four-year institution, they just haven’t taken the course quadrant in high school that would allow them to be admitted to a four-year institution,” Nies said.
“The percentage of high school students graduating from Merced-area high schools that have completed that is somewhere in the range of 25 to 30 percent, in some cases.”
Representatives of the Merced Union High School District, which counts six different high schools and three alternative high schools in its ranks, said that “A-G” college-prep track is the default set of classes students in the district are enrolled in.
Some of those classes might even translate into a career immediately after high school, school officials said. “That’s the track that everyone is on,” said Constantino Aguilar, assistant superintendent of educational services at the Merced Union High School District. “The rigor is there. The expectation is high and we understand that students can leave high school and go into a high-paying, high-skilled job after taking A-G courses.”
Not every high school adopts that A-G college-prep track as its default high school curriculum that all students are enrolled in.
Le Grand High School offers an honors high school diploma that high-achieving students can earn that puts them in those A-G classes, making them eligible for admission to a CSU or UC.
“About 50 percent of our senior class is eligible for that diploma,” Maciel, the Le Grand High School counselor, said. “This year, we have 105 current seniors and 48 are on track.”
Other school districts in the Merced area that do enroll every student in an A-G track, at least initially, include the Los Banos School District and the Gustine School District.
Students are only diverted to classes that don’t fall into the A-G track when they get below a C average in classes that would prepare them for college, school officials said.
Those who leave home
According to information provided by counselors, principals or registrars at each individual high school, not all college-bound students from Merced County go to state colleges in California.
Some students from the Class of 2020 went to out-of-state or private universities, including Oklahoma State University, Stanford University, Boise State University, Bushnell College in Eugene, Oregon, LeTorneau University in Texas, Montana State University, University of Jamestown in North Dakota and University of Nevada-Reno.
“I do have students who consider schools like Stanford and out-of-state schools,” said Ashley Ramirez, a counselor at Gustine High School. “I see those students being motivated, hardworking, embedded in the school culture and active on campus.”
Notably, many seniors from Stone Ridge Christian School’s class of 2020 opted to attend college at either a private university out-of-state. Stone Ridge sent seniors to a wide variety of schools, including in Oklahoma, Oregon, Arizona and Nevada. Some chose to go to in-state private universities, including in the San Francisco Bay Area and here in the San Joaquin Valley.