Methodology and sources

Georgia high schools

Source: Georgia Governor's Office of Student Achievement (GOSA), downloadable data: High School Graduate Outcomes and 2024-25 report card files.

Enrolled in college within a year is the share of a school's graduates found enrolled at a Georgia public or private college, a Georgia technical college, or an out-of-state college in the year after graduation (Class of 2024). It is the sum of GOSA's enrollment categories. The Georgia figure is our graduate-weighted average of all schools shown.
Where they enrolled lists the top five Georgia colleges by count. GOSA lists the top five out-of-state colleges in rank order, without counts.
Bachelor's within five years is the share of the Class of 2019 whose highest credential five years later was a bachelor's or higher. Eight-year figures are for the Class of 2016.
Graduation rate is the 2024-25 four-year adjusted cohort rate. SAT and ACT are school averages of students' highest scores. AP is the share of AP exams scored 3 or higher. HOPE is the share of graduates eligible for Georgia's HOPE Scholarship.
Beat the odds is our own analysis: we fit a straight line of college enrollment against the share of economically disadvantaged students across 410 schools with at least 50 graduates, and report each school's difference from that line. It shows which schools outperform their circumstances; it is not an official rating.
Locations come from NCES EDGE public school geocodes, 2024-25. School attendance zones are set by each district; living near a school does not guarantee a seat.

California high schools

Source: California Department of Education, College-Going Rate (12-month) and Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate downloads.

College-going rate is the share of high school completers (Class of 2023) who enrolled in any college within 12 months, split into University of California, Cal State, California community colleges, California private colleges and out-of-state colleges. Trends cover the Classes of 2019 to 2023.
UC/CSU courses done is the share of the Class of 2023's graduates who completed the "A–G" courses required for UC and CSU admission.
Alternative schools (under the state's alternative accountability system) and schools with fewer than 20 completers are left out. The statewide figure is the state's own total for all schools.

Texas high schools

Source: Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Report of 2023-2024 High School Graduates' Enrollment and Academic Performance.

Shows the Class of 2024 enrolled at Texas public universities, Texas public 2-year colleges and Texas independent colleges in the following year, plus first-year college GPA at public colleges.
Texas does not track students who leave the state. They appear as "not found," so Texas college-going is understated, especially at schools that send many students out of state. Compare Texas schools with each other, not with other states.
Texas leaves out high schools with 25 or fewer graduates.

Illinois high schools

Source: Illinois State Board of Education, 2026 Illinois Report Card public data set.

Share of graduates enrolled in any college within 12 months, split by 4-year, 2-year and trade or vocational schools, for the most recent class the 2026 Report Card covers. Graduation rate and low-income share are from the same file. Schools with fewer than 20 graduates are left out.

Pennsylvania high schools

Source: Pennsylvania Department of Education, Future Ready PA Index data files, 2024-25.

Share of graduates from two years before the 2024-25 report (Class of 2023) who enrolled in higher education, enlisted in the military or entered the Pennsylvania workforce.
Pennsylvania does not publish the number of graduates per school with this measure, so the statewide comparison is the median school.

Minnesota high schools (partial)

Sources: NCES Common Core of Data, 2023-24, through the Urban Institute Education Data Portal; Minnesota SLEDS.

Minnesota tracks each high school's graduates into college, in state and out of state, including each school's top 25 colleges, in SLEDS. It does not publish these numbers as a downloadable file, so we do not show them yet. Every Minnesota school page links to its official SLEDS report, and we have requested the full file.
School pages show enrollment, students per teacher and the share eligible for free or reduced-price meals (2023-24), which is affected by Minnesota's universal free school meals program. Regular public high schools with grade 12 and at least 100 students are included; alternative and online programs are not.
The statewide figure (61% of the Class of 2024 in college the fall after graduating: 42% in Minnesota, 19% outside) is from SLEDS.

Colleges and programs

Source: U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard (institution file Nov 2, 2026; field of study file Oct 15, 2026).

Net price is the average yearly cost of attendance minus grants and scholarships for first-time, full-time undergraduates who received federal aid, overall and by family income.
Graduation rate is completion within 150% of normal time (six years for a four-year college).
Earnings are medians for former students who received federal aid, working and not enrolled, six and ten years after they first enrolled. Program earnings are one and five years after completion.
Debt is the median federal loan debt at graduation.
Small programs are often suppressed to protect privacy; we show a dash.
Typical earnings for a major are the median across programs of each program's median. They describe a typical program, not every graduate.
Similar colleges nationally means the median for colleges with the same predominant degree type.

Linking high schools to colleges

Georgia reports college names as text. We matched them to College Scorecard records by name, with hand-checked fixes for abbreviations. A handful of names that could not be matched are shown without a link.

Corrections

Found a number that looks wrong? Email [email protected] with the page and figure, and we will check it against the source.