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Young Adults With Only High-School Diplomas Take Dim View of College, Report Says

June 29, 2011, 3:56 pm

A report released today by Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research group, describes a wide gulf between the perceptions of young adults with only a high-school education and those with a college education. Young adults who have only a high-school degree are less likely than college graduates to see higher education as worthwhile or to be confident that they will be financially stable in their lifetimes, the report says, and many high-school graduates lack the knowledge they may need to get access to college, such as an awareness of how to file for federal student aid. The report, “One Degree of Separation: How Young Americans Who Don’t Finish College See Their Chances for Success,” is based on a Public Agenda survey of approximately 600 young adults with high-school or college degrees, and was financed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Public Agenda says the results make “a clear case for the value of higher education.”

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  • marka

    Hmm … folks see things differently, and  that makes a ‘clear case for … higher education?’

    What?  Perhaps these individuals accurately perceive their chances for rewards.  Perhaps they have different value systems.  From this report, not at all clear to me.

  • firstyearttguy

    I think its funny that anyone would be surprised that those who choose not to go to college would have a more negative view of it than those who do. Duh! In many cases the reason why they didn’t go to college is b/c they had a more negative view of it than those who did. What will the next insightful headline read? ” In a shock poll it was found that Democrats are more likely to like Obama than Republicans”?

  • http://www.facebook.com/marvin.withers Marvin Withers

    College is not for everyone. After working in Higher Ed. I would say it is not even for many college students! Individuals have different learning styles and aptitudes. As an example, deisel mechanics don’t need an engineering degree but they are essential and earn good wages without college.
    Also, since so many college graduate never end up working in their field of study, I feel that often college is only an expensive way to extend childhood. Many high school people I have talked to see this and therefore feel that college is a waste of time.  

  • jamesebryan

    I agree with much of what you state, but would modify your final paragraph a bit.  To my way of thinking it isn’t so much as whether graduates work in their field of study (something easily measured), but instead whether they have developed sophisticated intellects and perspectives worth the time and expense it took to acquire them (something not easily measured).  The first standard presumes vocational training is the ultimate purpose of higher education, a belief held by many in our society, but certainly not by all of us in the arts and humanities, and I hope in other areas as well.  I don’t mean to discredit the legitimacy of preparing for careers, but just want to point out that isn’t the only worthy goal many college students neglect as they seek to avoid growing up for just a little longer.    College isn’t just inappropriate for those with no ambitions to pursue certain occupations; it is also inappropriate for those with no intellectual or creative ambitions.

  • inlibrarian

    From this short summary it is hard to know whether the survey makes “a clear case for the value of higher education.”  I do know that many high school students from the lower socio-economic classes are unaware of their choices and of the financial help available to them. My daughter just asked me yesterday to talk to two of her friends, siblings in a family that is really struggling in many ways, about their educational options.  She was appalled that they had never even considered the possibility of going to college.  Making a choice to enter a field that requires technical or vocational training rather than college is one thing, but assuming the college door is shut for you is another.

  • littleboyblue

    The elephant in the room in Higher Education continues to be skyrocketing tuition.  Filing for student aid isn’t rocket science, though it’s probably true that a lot of students don’t know how to do it.  More relevant is the fact that even with financial aid, many high school students still cannot afford college.  When they look at the amount of student loans they would have to take out to cover tuition, fees, books, and living costs, and then look at the realities of our current job market, many are smart enough to understand they will never be able to pay that money back.  Most college students are now middle and upper class, as are faculty and administrators.  It isn’t occurring to anyone in these income brackets that many students are opting out of college because they cannot compete, both financially, and in terms of connections they do not have.  I’ve worked in higher education for many years now, and increasingly see students getting ahead only through the people they know, and people their parents know.  If you are not one of the lucky few, college is out of reach, and this is a real problem that really needs to be addressed.  I for one am disgusted that college has become a certification process for the privileged, locking out those with fewer advantages.

  • akprof

    The purpose of college goes beyond vocational preparation – and this from a nurse educator. The purpose of college is to help people broaden their horizons and critical thinking skills. I’ll bet the tea-partiers who held up signs exhorting lawmakers to keep their “government hands off” Medicare were not college grads!!

  • akprof

    And if college works, it creates intellectual and creative ambitions!!

  • la_profesora

    Hmmm…first of all, 600 is a pretty small sample for this kind of attitudinal research.  But also, this sounds to me like the sort of “learned helplessness” you often see in people are poor and come from underprivileged backgrounds.  My husband is a first-generation college grad, and many of his family members are stuck in rather awful and desperate situations, not because they are stupid or incapable (quite the opposite, in fact), but because they have a very limited sense of their own agency.  That is to say, they do not see that anything that they do is capable of creating real change in their lives.

    I also should point out that many public high schools are doing a poor job of steering these students towards college.  Their focus tends to be more on graduation and retention, because, like us, they are getting evaluated on those measures.  I have heard this from both my husband (a high school teacher), and my college’s admissions counselors.

  • drnels

    Thanks for all of the comments, everyone!  I may be incorporating many of these in future posts.  I already have one planned on how to setup a sabbatical, how to handle finances during a sabbatical, how to find grants and fellowships, how to end a sabbatical (though that’s a year off, thankfully), and other things that will arise for me this year.  Keep the comments coming as they will help me frame the rest of the series.

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