Arts Credits Earned in High School and Postsecondary Enrollment

More students who earned greater high school arts credit earning enrolled in postsecondary education than students who earned fewer high school arts credits. This Data Point, Arts credits earned in high school and postsecondary enrollment: Differences by background characteristics, uses data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09), a national study of more than 23,000 ninth-graders in 2009. Arts credits earned by high school graduates differed by student background characteristics. The Data Point also shows differences in postsecondary enrollment by numbers of arts credits earned in high school. While most students earned some credits in arts courses in high school, there were differences by race/ethnicity. White students earned more arts credits on average than all other groups except for Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students. Fourteen percent of students who earned 4+ arts credits did not enroll in postsecondary education, which is less than the 19 percent of students who earned 2.0-3.9 credits, the 20 percent who earned .1-1.9 arts credits, and the 23 percent who earned no arts credits.