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.

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Uncertain Steps