KIPP’s Follow-Through of Graduates

Transitioning students from high school to college is a major mission for the KIPP charter schools network.

With 23 schools at the high school level and another 89 that end with the 8th grade nationwide, KIPP tracks all its graduates to monitor completion of two-year and four-year college programs. As of fall 2015, 44 percent of students who completed 8th grade at a KIPP middle school at least a decade ago had earned an undergraduate college degree.

To track and support its students after K-12 graduation, KIPP has formed more than 70 formal partnerships at postsecondary institutions nationwide. The charter network has set goals for enrolling a certain number of its graduates and providing support on the college campuses to help students access resources they might need and connect with peers from other KIPP schools. (More than 40 KIPP-educated students currently attend University of Pennsylvania, for example.)

“We don’t see ourselves as a K-12 school network, but as a K-16 network,” says Steve Mancini, director of public affairs at KIPP. “We have KIPP through college. KIPP helps demystify the college code. There are teams of counselors encouraging families to apply to a wide variety of schools. All our college counselors give families data about college completion for students of color and low-income students.”

When KIPP surveyed its 900 alumni, Mancini says, “we found it was helpful to have other kids like them at college, to create clusters of KIPP kids at their college.” says Mancini. “We want to provide support — academic, social and financial — to families and students.”