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Before starting college, consider your chances of actually getting a degree

by Grace
With college, it’s particularly important to finish what you started because “A Bit of College Can Be Worse Than None at All”.
Americans have flocked to colleges in unprecedented numbers in the last half-decade, fueled by a conviction that postsecondary education is the surest route to steady employment and higher salaries.Yet those who begin, but don’t complete, a degree are learning the hard way that the payoff is in finishing—or that they might have been better off not attending college at all.The number of students who don’t complete college is growing. Nearly one-third of students who started college in 2012 didn’t return to a U.S. school the following year, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. And a new report out from a group of higher-education organizations found that roughly two-thirds of students who return to school after interrupted courses of study still don’t graduate.

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A dual penalty for dropping out of college

Those students may find themselves doubly damned: cut out of consideration for professional-track jobs, and starting their careers years behind their peers who entered the workforce with just high-school diplomas. Many have student loans to boot.

A degree is an important marker for employers seeking workers who have demonstrated “perseverance and persistence”.

When a degree was still a relative rarity, any college experience helped a candidate stand out. But postsecondary education is now the norm for enough people that a short stint in college is no longer a positive differentiator, says Anthony Carnevale, a labor economist who runs Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce….

Candidates with degrees or certificates have “shown perseverance and persistence to obtain that credential,” says Kevin Brinegar, president and chief executive of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce. Dropping out after a few courses makes managers wonder “‘Is that what they’re going to do when they come to work for me? They’ll work for three weeks or three days and say, ‘I’m out of here?’

High school graduates should consider these factors before they rush into enrolling for college, especially if they are poorly prepared academically or need to borrow substantially.

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Melissa Korn, “A Bit of College Can Be Worse Than None at All”, Wall Street Journal, Oct. 13, 2014.

Posted on October 15, 2014 at 5:30 am in jobs after college, value of college   |  RSS feed

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4 Responses to “Before starting college, consider your chances of actually getting a degree”

    
  1. CSProfMom
    October 15, 2014 at 7:58 am

    Unfortunately, I think this is unrealistic. The students who are most likely to drop out of college are the ones who are first in their family to go to college. One of the big reasons they do not succeed is that they simply have no idea how to succeed in college. They don’t understand college culture. And they are most likely to be at community colleges where there is little in the way of support. How can these kids make an accurate prediction of whether they are likely to graduate when they have no idea what it is going to be like?

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  2. CSProfMom
    October 15, 2014 at 8:14 am

    I listened to a WNYC interview yesterday with the reported who wrote that depressing NY Times piece on community college kids. One of the depressing things that was pointed out is that most classes at Laguardia CC are taught by adjuncts who do not hold office hours because 1) they have no place to meet students 2) they aren’t paid for office hours. The only time students can meet with the instructor is in the few minutes after class, while students are streaming into the room for the next class. Contrast that with elite liberal arts colleges, where professors are often expected to socialize with the students, come to their activities, hold extensive office hours in beautiful private offices, and work one on one with the students on research projects. We take the most at-risk students, give them the least support, and then wonder why they drop out in droves.

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  3. Grace
    October 15, 2014 at 12:24 pm

    Yes, it’s probably unrealistic unless some restrictions were placed on loans to make them available only to college-ready students.

    It’s unfortunate that funding issues leave so many students without important resources, but I think it would be better if the resources were better focused on the strongest low-income students. By the time they get to college, the chances for successful academic remediation are so low for some of these students that it might even be considered a disservice to string them along for a while only to have them drop out.

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