Making it to Year 2

Of the 282 at-risk students who were offered services such as tutoring and financial counseling in the 2009-2010 school year, 85 percent completed their first year of college and are working on their second, according to a city analysis of the program’s progress so far. Comparing the numbers to the previous year’s success rate of 82 percent for all Boston public school graduates, officials called it a victory.

“We’re very excited,’’ said Carol Johnson, superintendent of Boston public schools. “We’ve seen more of our students enter the second year, and that’s what’s critical. Sometimes, students will go for the first year, and then they’ll drop out or stop taking classes and it’s a lot harder for them to resume.’’

The program, Success Boston, was launched in 2009 amid worries that graduates of Boston schools, which boasted some of the nation’s highest graduation rates and college-enrollment rates, were failing at alarming rates once they reached college. A 2008 report by the School Department and the Boston Private Industry Council found that just 35.5 percent of graduates in the class of 2000 had completed college seven years later.

“I thought it was my responsibility,’’ said Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who issued a challenge and helped launch the program. “We haven’t reached all our goals, but the key is we’re making progress.’’

Success Boston hopes to gradually increase the college graduation rate of Boston public schools graduates for each student class coming into the program.

The program is targeting students seen as most likely to drop out before they complete degrees, especially those who have historically faced roadblocks: minority students and those who are from low-income families or are the first in their families to attend college.

One such student — Annalia Guerrero of Roxbury, 19 and a Suffolk University sophomore — said the “whole college thing’’ was disorienting at first, but the program offered scholarships to help pay for books and time-management workshops.

“I was the first one in my family to go to college, so I didn’t have anyone to talk to me about what college is and, ‘This is what your professors expect from you,’ ’’ said Guerrero, a 2009 graduate of Madison Park Technical Vocational High School.

Under the program, members of six nonprofits — Bottom Line, Hyde Square Task Force, The Education Resource Institute; Freedom House, the Private Industry Council, and ACCESS — help students with everything from academics to roommate conflicts. The Boston Foundation pledged $5 million over five years to fund the nonprofit services.

The help appeared to improve numbers at both two-year and four-year colleges; 77 percent of the inaugural class of Success Boston students who enrolled at two-year colleges returned for a second year, compared to 67 percent of all students from the class of 2008. Of the Success Boston students at four-year schools, 91 percent reenrolled, compared to 87 percent of all students from the previous year.

Joan Becker — vice provost of academic support services and undergraduate studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, which spearheaded the higher education piece of the initiative — said a key has been increased attention to the students who need it most.

Estella Stephens, 20 and a sophomore at UMass Boston, said she would have been lost without the personalized attention she received through Success Boston.

Program coordinators “helped with my financial aid,’’ said Stephens, an English High School graduate. “They told me how to do it and what I needed to know so I wouldn’t mess up on it.’’

Money can be one of the biggest stumbling blocks, said Eric Johnson, executive director of the nonprofit Bottom Line, which helps students in areas including financial issues.

Efforts to improve a student’s chances for success must also include a look at how schools are preparing students for college, UMass’s Becker said.

The program has already worked with some schools to provide needed college preparatory classes. It may also examine whether classes that prepare students for the state-mandated MCAS exam also adequately prepare them for college.

Akilah Johnson can be reached at ajohnson@globe.com.