The Bay State’s public colleges and universities attract a sizeable number of students from Boston, but they seem to be more valued as a higher-ed option in other parts of the state — Worcester County, the Springfield area, the Merrimack Valley, and the South Coast. The map below shows how likely students in each school district are to enroll in public institutions after graduation, according to the Massachusetts School-to-College Report, released by the state in April. (Vocational, agricultural, and charter schools are included in the data but not on our map.) High schools in Hingham and Wellesley were the only ones where less than 10 percent of graduates enrolled in the public system, presumably because so many went to private or out-of-state schools.

Lowell High School sent 347 students — or 44 percent of its 2005 graduating class — to the public higher-ed system, the largest such number in the state. And there were 19 high school districts in which over half of all graduates went on to public colleges and universities in Massachusetts. But how prepared were they for college? Most of the freshmen from four of those 19 schools — Lawrence High, the Lowell Middlesex Academy Charter School, the Mahar Regional School in Orange, and the Sabis International Charter School in Springfield — enrolled in remedial classes during their first semester, as did 49 percent of the Lowell High contingent. Suburban schools generally fared a little better: Sixty percent of Tyngsborough High graduates enrolled in public institutions, and 36 percent of them took remedial classes.

Among high schools that sent more than 40 percent of their graduates to the state’s higher-ed system, Boston Latin Academy had the best college readiness record: Only 8 percent of its former students needed remedial courses. At the other extreme, 70 percent of the graduates from Springfield’s High School of Commerce enrolled in remedial courses.