Baltimore City Schools graduation rate edges upward as district budget rises sharply over eight years

Graduation results show modest gains as spending climbs

Baltimore City Public Schools recorded a small year-over-year increase in its four-year graduation rate, continuing a multi-year upward trend even as district spending has grown substantially over the past eight years.

For the Class of 2025, the district reported a four-year cohort graduation rate of 71.7%, up 0.7 percentage points from the prior year. The district also reported a five-year cohort graduation rate of 74.6%, indicating additional students earned diplomas after taking more than four years to complete high school.

The district’s latest graduation improvement follows an earlier gain reported for the Class of 2024, when the four-year cohort graduation rate reached 71.0% and the five-year rate reached 74.0%. Taken together, these figures reflect incremental growth in completion outcomes rather than a large, sudden shift.

Budget growth and what it represents

City Schools’ operating budget has expanded markedly in recent years. The district’s budget for FY2026 was approved at $1.9 billion. The preceding year’s budget was $1.78 billion, and FY2024 was budgeted at $1.7 billion.

These totals reflect a broad mix of revenue sources and obligations, including staffing costs, mandated services, and targeted academic and student-support initiatives. Budget growth has also occurred during a period when urban districts have faced shifting enrollment, rising labor and contracted-service costs, and short-term federal aid that was directed to pandemic recovery.

• FY2024 operating budget: $1.7 billion
• FY2025 operating budget: $1.78 billion
• FY2026 operating budget: $1.9 billion

How City Schools explains the gains

District leadership has attributed graduation gains to several strategies aimed at keeping students on track to earn credits and complete graduation requirements. These include expanded credit recovery options, intensified 9th-grade supports, postsecondary planning teams, and attendance-focused interventions.

District statements on the 2025 results emphasized 9th-grade on-track supports, credit recovery, stronger postsecondary planning, and daily attendance as key areas of focus.

Context: Maryland’s statewide trend and local demographics

At the state level, Maryland’s four-year cohort graduation rate declined in 2025 to 86.4%, down from 87.6% in 2024. City Schools’ improvement in the same reporting cycle stands out as the statewide rate softened.

City Schools educates about 76,000 students in the 2025–26 school year. The district reports that roughly seven in 10 students are classified as low income, with multilingual learners and students with disabilities representing significant shares of the student population. Those student characteristics shape the scale and cost of required services and can affect graduation trajectories.

What the numbers do and do not show

A one-point change in graduation rates can represent meaningful outcomes for hundreds of students, but it does not, by itself, explain why overall performance remains below statewide levels or how effectively new spending is translating into long-term academic gains. Graduation rates also capture completion, not necessarily readiness indicators such as postsecondary enrollment, persistence, or workforce credential attainment.

District and state reporting will provide additional detail in subgroup outcomes, school-by-school patterns, and dropout measures—data that typically help clarify whether progress is broad-based or concentrated in specific programs and campuses.