Uncertain Steps

This is the last in a series of posts discussing the various causes of a high percentage of young adults who start with the goal of getting a college degree and end up falling far short of that.

In previous posts, we discussed lack of financial resources and/or academic skills as likely reasons why there is such a high failure rate. But both of these are at least partially related to what I believe is the most frequent cause. Poor planning.

Students do very limited exploration and planning for their future until it’s about time to make a decision. As they get to their senior year of high school, everyone (including themselves) starts putting on the pressure for an “answer.”  Struggling to come up with anything, they eventually just pick something or just follow everyone else off to college because that is supposed to be the best route.

They enter college with no direction or focus thinking maybe they will stumble on to something once they are there.  Occasionally that happens.  Usually it doesn’t. Eventually either they get frustrated and quit or their parents pull the plug on financial support because they see no progress towards a degree or even a general field of study.

What’s the answer?

Most importantly, teenagers need to start exploring possible careers earlier. Not so that they can “narrow down” their choices sooner, but so they can expand their thinking.  So they can BROADEN their list of options and have the time to explore them more thoroughly.

Teenagers (with the help of parents and educators) need to do a better job of:

• Assessing themselves; their strengths, interests, beliefs, and values

• Recognizing that they have limited exposure to the world and realize with their limited experiences they can’t possibly have be able to sit and think harder and come up with the answer to “What are you going to do with your life?”

• Utilizing what they do know to create more experiences.  This increased exposure to the world will enhance their creative thinking, giving them MORE options to explore…rather than NARROW the choices.

Unfortunately instead of doing this, we have them take a few skills inventories.  Maybe fill out a personality profile.  Then label them or give them a list of the top 10 careers they should consider. Until both teens and parents begin to realize that there is never going to be a single program that is going to kick out the perfect answer for them, the statistics will remain about the same…or worse.

This is the third part in a series of posts discussing the million teens each year attempting college and quitting before ever obtaining a degree.

The last post discussed the likelihood of finances being a legitimate obstacle, or if it only became an obstacle when the student had no real desire or direction. The second potential cause of such a low rate of success in college that was discussed in the introduction to this series was that students were entering college without the necessary skills to be successful in college level courses.

Kenneth Gray, professor in the College of Education at Penn State University addressed this particular topic in the book  “Getting Real: Helping Teens Find Their Future,” Some of the statistics relevant to this topic summarized in the book were:

“Nationwide assessments of academic skills, such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), suggest that only 40% at best, graduate from high school with the academic skills to do real college-level academics.  Because only a few hundred of the nations 4-year colleges admit 70% or more of all applicants, having poor academic skills is no longer a barrier to getting into a 4-year college; however, it is still a barrier to graduation.  Students who graduate from high school without completing mathematics through Algebra II, taking 2 years of the same foreign language, taking two laboratory sciences, and having a B average and combined SAT scores of 1100 or ACT 22 are at risk.  The Higher Education Research Institute reports that students who enter college with a C average are six times more likely to drop out as those with an A average.  Those with combined SAT scores of 800 or less are three times less likely to graduate than those with scores of 1000 or better (Gray & Herr, 1996).”

And what is the answer to this?  Remedial programs.  Let just about everyone in … even those who have demonstrated that they lack the necessary skills … and then put them in remedial courses (creating even more expense) before they start courses leading toward a particular degree.

Only about half of ALL students that start in a 4 year college are ending up with a degree, and this INCLUDES all of those that are very well suited for college level academics.  What percent of those going through remedial programs could possibly survive and end up with a degree?  1 out of 10?

I haven’t been able to find any statistics on the success rate of  college remedial courses.  Hopefully, someone has this data and will prove me wrong.

Remember that these are just statistics.  Averages.  We all know of examples of more than a few who have beaten these odds.  Students who were mediocre, at best, in high school that didn’t just survive college.  They excelled.  They excelled as a student.  They excelled in a related career after college.  Why?  Because they found a particular field in which they had great interest, that matched their skills, that they became passionate about, and committed themselves to studying, learning, and practicing every aspect of it.

On the other hand, I probably know more examples of the opposite situation.  Extremely intelligent high school graduates who had both the high GPA and above average SAT/ACT scores who were never able to achieve post-secondary success. They had no particular direction in mind, and were relatively lost about their future.

Hopefully students and parents will begin to recognize the odds and how they might be stacked against them. Gray’s book title puts it pretty bluntly… “Getting Real.”  Being realistic about their skills.  Being realistic about where their true passions are.   Being realistic about whether they have the drive and motivation to overcome the fact that they fall short of what the statistics say is necessary to succeed at college level courses.

Parents may have more difficulty accepting the reality than the students.  I had a conversation a couple weeks ago with the former high school principal that worked with my father during his years of being a guidance counselor.  He could recall many occasions in which they would discuss various students (and their parents) who needed to “get real” but it was impossible to convince the parents that their child was not capable of surviving college.  Only when a parent was concerned enough to ask could they really get across that there were other options better suited for their child’s interests and strengths.

What do you think?  Is having less stringent academic requirements for admission giving more people opportunities?  Or is it setting more of them up for an expensive failure?

In the first part of this series about struggling for success in college, I proposed that there are only a few possible reasons for kids starting college and dropping out before ever getting a degree:

• They couldn’t find the money to pay for it.

• They didn’t have the academic skills to survive.

• They had no idea why they were there.

The rising cost of a 4 year degree certainly tends to make the news quite frequently.  The latest being California approving a 32% hike in their tuition in the next two years.  California is not alone.  The cost of a college education is increasing across the country. Its hard to argue that finances aren’t a limitation for some when the costs of a 4 year degree ranges somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000 (or more.)  Those kind of numbers are intimidating to any young adult.

What I question though is whether that is the real reason for someone dropping out of college or not.  Given the availability of financial assistance, through state and federal programs, scholarships, or even a job (although those might be harder to find right now,) it’s difficult to believe that there are many situations where someone who is motivated to obtain a SPECIFIC college degree will be limited due to finances.

I don’t doubt that there are some rare cases with special circumstances that might make finances a legitimate obstacle to continuing a college education.  But about the time I think of some possible examples, I can probably also find someone somewhere with the exact same set of circumstances who is making it happen.

The key is knowing specifically WHY they are pursuing a degree in the first place.

Take for example a student who has been pushed into college by friends, parents, and teachers because that’s the only way to keep from flippin’ burgers for the rest of their life.  He doesn’t have a clue why he is there or what he wants to accomplish while there.   Pretty good chance he isn’t going to seek out and find the means to financially support an education he doesn’t find value in the first place.

Compare that to the single mother, dead-set and focused on becoming a medical doctor.  Despite some roadblocks created by her personal / family situation she will find a way to borrow and earn enough to support her kids AND make her education a reality as well.  The cost of that education is equally as intimidating to her, but she recognizes that it is the only way to pursue the direction she is passionate about.  It might take her a little bit longer.  She may have to suffer a few more sacrifices.  But ultimately she makes it happen.

We all probably know of many examples that match each of those two situations, and probably every conceivable variation between.  The purpose of bringing it up here is not as a typical “you can do anything” speech.  It’s more to suggest that in a majority of those situations where money seems to be the cause of failing to achieve a degree, it most likely is lack of a direction they feel passionate about.

Related Posts:

Struggling for College Success

I don’t think any of us have to look too far from home to see how much difficulty many teens are having finding success after high school.  I always expected there was a fair number of young adults who ATTEMPTED the college route and didn’t make it, or at least didn’t get a degree in a reasonable amount of time.  I have to say I was more than shocked when I saw what the real statistics were.

Based on statistics and trends reported by the National Center for Education Statistics, next spring over 3 million young adults will graduate from high school.  Nearly 2 million of them will plan on obtaining a bachelors degree or higher. I’m not sure if it’s more shocking, scary, or just plain sad that out of those 2 million that make an attempt at college, 1/3 of them won’t make it past their freshman year, and around a million of them still won’t have their degree six years later. (These estimates were based on a 2006 report which was the last time some of these have been reported, but there is nothing to indicate the trend has changed, and more than likely has probably worsened.) I can only imagine how much of the $100 billion in school loans dished out every year is the responsibility of those with nothing to show for their investment.

Unfortunately these aren’t the statistics that schools concern themselves with.  High school graduation rates and enrollment to college are what seems to be most important. According to the enrollment numbers each year, more and more kids are beginning 4 year college programs than ever before. So, if college enrollment is our only scorecard, our education system apparently has been successful. Most secondary schools don’t keep track of whether the students that graduate from their high school and enter college actually ever get a degree or not.  Or if they do get a degree, whether they are able to find employment in a field that is related to their major.

Close to a million kids with a pile of school loan debt and no degree to show for it…most of them moving back home with Mom and Dad with no clue what to do next. I’m not convinced that can be defined as a success.  I know as an employer I didn’t give many bonus points to a semester, or two, or three of college on a resume.  Partial degrees don’t carry much weight.

More important than all the specific statistics themselves is what’s causing this high rate of failure.  It seems all of those who dropout of college have to fall into one of the following groups:

• Those who cannot financially afford to continue.

• Those who didn’t have the necessary skills to be successful at the college level.

• Those who had the skills and ability but had no idea why they were there.

I have no idea which one of these is most prevalent statistically but I’m not sure it really matters.  I’m not even sure if each one is a separate cause. I will explore each of these further in the next couple of posts.

Related Posts:  Struggling for Success (Part II): Lack of Funds

When I first started researching information about careers and how best teens should explore their future, I did what I always do when I want information about something (right after Google), I took a drive to Barnes and Noble to find some relevant books. Certainly I wasn’t the only one that had concerns.

What really struck me was not the number of career-oriented books, but how many of those books were directed at the “midlifers” and “re-inventers” and “career changers.”  Essentially all those people looking for a change in their career direction.  Somewhere along the line they decided what they were doing wasn’t providing them what they wanted:

* not enough money
* not enough people contact
* too much people contact
* too long of a commute
* work was just unfulfilling

Whatever it was, something was missing.

Obviously, if Barnes and Noble is going to give up that much shelf space to a topic, there is a fairly large audience of people looking for help solving that problem in their life.  Looking at statistics from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics in 2002 people between the age of 18 and 34 changed jobs 10 times.  By 2008, they average 14 jobs.  On average, people will change entire careers 3 times.

Did everyone “miss the boat” that bad?

It would be easy to assume that all of those people just turned out to be wrong the first time.  Either the process they used for choosing a career was inherently flawed, or they just made a poor decision.  But just because people make changes doesn’t mean that they made a mistake the first time (I happen to know this because I’m one of them!)

In fact, maybe their choice was perfect at the time. There are an infinite number of possible changes that could have occurred to necessitate a change in their career life:

* their values, or what is most important in their life, may have changed
* developed new interests
* discovered new talents
* developed new strengths they would like to utilize in their work life
* the work environment changed

How does all this apply to young adults trying to find some direction to pursue after high school?  Teenagers are convinced that whatever decision they make about their future will impact the rest of their life.  That they will be confined to that career.  The magnitude of a decision of that nature essentially paralyzes them with fear and we wonder why they have a “deer in the headlights” look when we ask them about their future.

And then we think we are helping by asking them more questions.  “Where do you see yourself in 20 years?”  20 years???  I think it would be difficult to find many people in their 30s and 40s who can honestly say that their life turned out anything remotely close to what they had envisioned when they were 17 or 18 years old. When you consider how limited a persons experiences are and their exposure to the world by that age, combined with how rapidly the world is changing and will continue to change, isn’t it a bit unrealistic to expect that somehow they should know at that age what they intend to do for the rest of their life?

Even though my personal exploration of the process used by young adults to find a career direction has spanned several years, each year my daughters get older it starts to hit a little closer to home.

I presumed, as most parents probably do, that the school would be doing whatever was necessary to move the kids along in their thinking on these topics at whatever pace they knew to be best. Apparently that isn’t happening.

Not only had the school not done much as of yet, there was little expectation they were planning to do much in the future other than have each student take an interest inventory and aptitude test and then browse through some descriptive materials of different careers.

That is pretty much all they did 25 years ago when I was in the same spot.  I’m not really faulting the educators involved, as I had one of the best guidance counselors available.  (My father was a guidance counselor for over 25 years) I guess I just presumed that they would be doing something a bit more proactive and sophisticated now. The decisions seem so much more complicated now – more career choices, more educational options, and much bigger dollars invested in preparing for whatever path you choose. I was shocked to see that the tools to help teens prepare to make those choices were no better than ever, and in most cases schools have even less time and resources to devote to the challenge.

I’m certainly not blaming the school.  They are constantly being required to squeeze more into the same amount of time, and do it with less resources because of budget cuts and funding issues. They are overburdened the way it is trying to get all the kids to basic functional proficiency in the academic skills necessary to enter college, and that does seem to be the primary objective…get EVERYONE ready for college.

I’m sure not in all cases, but in a majority, even the most creative and talented educators are having to focus most of their time teaching students to pass standardized tests, rather then creating interest and curiosity in the subject matter.  Instead of encouraging independent and critical thinking, they must instead insist on memorization and regurgitation of facts.  Then wonder why kids become disengaged and drop out when they see no connection between the material and their future.

Guidance counselors are equally bogged down.  Spending more time “putting out fires” and dealing with crisis (drugs, alcohol, teen pregnancy, violence, dysfunctional families, etc) than providing positive guidance for their future.

Unfortunately a great deal of the responsibility lies with us as parents.  The hard part for me is finding a way to guide their exploration of themselves and the world without influencing them too much.  I need to remember that I only see things from one perspective…MINE!  It’s difficult to put that aside and realize that we are different from our kids. Occasionally a child may be a “chip off the ol’ block,” but more often than not that isn’t the case. They are their own person, with their own strengths and interests that are entirely unique to them. It takes a certain amount of continual conscious effort to keep some of our thoughts to ourselves and focus more on helping them explore themselves and the world and come to conclusions of their own.

Over the years of working in a career that involved daily interaction with lots of people, I had the opportunity to interact with hundreds of teenagers and their parents.  Inevitably, most conversations with high school students led to the  question, “What are you going to do when you graduate?” or to the parent, “What is your son/daughter going to do after high school?”  More often than not, they had no clue.

As graduation approached, many of these same young people quickly pulled together an answer to that question which typically involved going to the nearest state university and majoring in “business.” Obviously some of these had specific interest in business and a career path in mind, but for many it seemed that this was just a fallback plan when they had no idea what else to choose.

Several years ago I began to see other trends that were even more concerning. I don’t know if these were new trends, changing trends, or something that had been occurring for years.  Maybe it was only more noticeable to me because my own daughter was now a teenager and would be facing some of these same questions herself.

• More and more high school students were disinterested in school and dropped out when they saw little benefit in continuing.

• Kids going off to college only to return within the year, or a couple years, with no degree and no real interest in returning

• Many of those who did manage to graduate with a degree ended up moving back in with Mom and Dad

• The lucky ones who were able to find jobs aren’t working in a career that is even related to what they went to college for.

It seemed young adults were having more and more difficulty finding a direction in life that created any level of success after high school.  Sure, there were some that excelled.  But plenty were struggling. (And this was before the economy tanked and unemployment skyrocketed so that isn’t a legitimate excuse.)  I’m not convinced that it’s because our young people are inherently lazy, but who else is there to blame?

Ultimately, I realize teens make their own decisions about their life and have to live with the consequences. I certainly trust my daughters to make good choices, but it’s difficult to  make good choices without sufficient information upon which to base those choices. I don’t know any teens, including my own, that have enough experience and awareness of all that is out there, and the pros and cons of choosing different paths, to make those kinds of decisions on their own. Their limited insight into any occupation seems largely based on what they learn from TV, pop music and other equally questionable sources.

Like any parent, I want to make sure I’m doing whatever I can to give my kids the best chance at success in life, but I’m a little uncertain what that role is suppose to be.  At the time, I’m not sure I knew enough to really be much help making objective decisions either, as I only know about the career path I chose, and I know that my perspective on that is warped by having been too close to it for too long. I want my daughters to have the benefit of choosing from the broadest possible field of potential directions, so they can find something that matches their unique talents and interests.  Not something that becomes just a job to pay the bills, but something they can be passionate about.

Not sure where to look for the answers, or even the questions, I turned to two old friends – Google and Barnes & Noble. And after many months of digging I started to figure out that there are some answers out there to be found. There is some good information and advice available. The problem is that it was buried. Deep. Really Deep.

How is it possible for a busy stressed out teen (or parent) to invest that much time digging around and piecing together answers. So I decided to start writing down my thoughts, questions, and discoveries with the hope that  I might save someone else from having to do all the digging that I have done, as well as to get input and discussion from other people.