Black College Success
Despite strides in recent years to prepare more students from South LA high schools for college, gaps remain in the readiness rates between Black and African-American students and their White and Asian counterparts. Currently, only about 26% of African American graduates from the LAUSD matriculate to 4-year institutions, with just 17% achieving a degree within six years. LA Promise Fund’s Black College Success (BCS) program collaborates with select colleges and universities to forge significant pathways for college success, purposed to uplift Black students from 10 schools within South LA. Our study consists of an evaluation of BCS, with funding exceeding 1.5 million dollars from the LA Promise Fund and the US Department of Education.
About the Evaluation
Our evaluation utilizes a five-year Quasi-Experimental Design (QED) to assess BCS’s impact on outcomes crucial for educational success, including college awareness/readiness, self-awareness, self-esteem, self-efficacy, enrollment, persistence, academic achievement, and degree attainment. The program serves approximately 600 Black high school seniors within the Los Angeles, Compton, and Inglewood Unified School Districts, including Charter schools, aiming to have markedly better educational and life outcomes for this group.
Through detailed data collection and analysis, comparing intervention groups with a carefully selected control group from various districts, our evaluation seeks to document BCS’s impact and programmatic effectiveness. With ongoing survey administration scheduled to continue through Spring 2028, our goal is to chronicle the program’s achievements and challenges but also to contribute valuable insights on fostering educational equity and supporting the academic and personal growth of Black students from high school to college completion and beyond.