1999 College Enrollment and Work Activity of High School Graduates — 2000-05-17

Sixty-three percent of the high school graduating class of 1999 was enrolled in colleges or universities in the fall, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The college enrollment rate was somewhat lower than a year earlier and was well below its October 1997 record high of 67.0 percent. The over-the-year decline was much sharper among young women than among young men. These data come from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly nationwide survey of about 50,000 households conducted for BLS by the Census Bureau. Questions relating to school enrollment and high school graduation status are asked each October in a supplement to the basic CPS. Additional information about the October supplement is included in the Technical Note. Among the 2.9 million youth who graduated from high school in 1999, about 1.8 million (62.9 percent) were enrolled in college the following fall.