While college admissions are at an all-time high, Millenials are also dropping out of college in larger numbers, too. An improving economy can offer more immediate income opportunities, but a college degree still correlates with much higher earning power over the course of an adult’s career. In the past 40 years, the percentage of U.S. high school graduates that goes on to college has risen from 50% to nearly 66% today. Females fare better than males in their efforts to complete a college degree. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 50% of women who start college have a bachelor’s degree by age 29, whereas only 40% of men have one.
While there are many reasons for these trends, lack of experience with meaningful employment is emerging as a big one. Fewer high school students transition to college with work experience or any tangible idea of a career that their college education can help them pursue. Their high school trajectories have been consumed with SAT prep courses, hours of homework related to AP courses, and the extracurricular activities deemed all-important to getting into a “good” college. This leaves little time to explore or even learn about meaningful career options.
Malia Obama made news this week with her decision to take a Gap Year before starting college at Harvard in 2017. By deferring her enrollment, Malia joins the growing ranks of Millenials who take a year before college to explore her interests, gain some work experience and, perhaps, get to know her own goals and values better outside the unrelenting stream of a college-prep tidal wave that has consumed this generation of teenagers. Ivy League colleges offer scholarships to students who have done Gap Years because they are routinely more mature and, consequently, tend to have higher graduation rates than other undergraduates. CRG is proud to offer a Gap Year program, which just completed its first year of implementation. We welcome your calls if you would like to explore this option for yourself or your own high school graduate. If a Gap Year is good enough for the President’s daughter…