Graduation and Postsecondary Pathways Project

Bolstering High School Completion and College Enrollment: Ten Strategies to Support Youth Through Three Critical Transitions

This report reviews educational initiatives designed to support youth in completing high school and pursuing postsecondary success, focusing on three critical educational transitions: the shift from middle to high school, ‘on-track’ for graduation status freshman year, and the transition to college. Synthesizing our findings from this review, we highlight ten strategies identified as promising to support youth through these transitions. We also argue that efforts to bolster secondary and post-secondary success will be incomplete without a sustained focus on educational equity. We therefore define three dimensions of educational equity and discuss strategies that contend with them in various ways.

Margaret Goldman, Pascale Mevs, Swati Dontamsetti, Kristen Foley, and Vandeen A. Campbell, Bolstering High School Completion and College Enrollment: Ten Strategies to Support Youth through Three Critical Transitions (Rutgers University: Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies, 2025), 1-53.