There is a wonderful study that has been done by the Department of Education.
It is a longitudinal study. Meaning that 14,000 students were interviewed when they were sophomores in 2002 and are being followed-up over time. The most recent follow-up was in 2012, roughly 8 years after most of them finished high school.
The most interesting findings for me will be based on cross tabulations. I have not found the source of the crosstabs to look at. Crosstabs shows the important tables broken down by the significant sub categories. For example the first table in the published report shows the level of educational attainment by all of the major categories such as sex, race, parents economic status and parents educational achievement. In a crosstab you could look at the racial composition of the parents educational achievement. Blacks probably start out with an economic and educational disability.
The following are the interesting findings that I have gotten from reading the tables that I think may be of interest to my readers.
Women are getting bachelor's and higher degrees at a significantly higher level than men. 30% versus 36%. Asians are getting these degrees at 51% compared to blacks at 20%. Bigger differences than I suspected.
Parental economic status has an enormous impact on who gets a bachelors degree or higher. Low economic status parents mean only 15% of their offspring will get a bachelor or higher degree; whereas 61% of the children from the top economic status will get these degrees. Economic status of parents results in outcomes even higher than the average of Asians. (Without cross tabs we can't tell the economic background Asians).
The survey asked the educational expectations of the sophomores in their first interview. 85% expected to complete college. In fact only 33% did. What accounts for this difference? Is it socially important to say you intend to complete college when you are in high school?
Not surprisingly public school students weren't as likely to graduate from college as Catholic and other private school students. 31% compared to 60%. All students getting under 3.0 grades have a much lower college graduation rate, under 25%. Compared to 50% who had a 3.00-3.49 grade average and 77% of those with a 3.5 grade or better completed college. Think of them as academically inclined.
Is it a good idea to take a year off from academia before beginning college? Not really. People who took off a year only graduated at a 26% rate compared to a 42% rate for those who started immediately after high school.
High school sophomores who were in private nonprofit schools had an astronomically higher percentage of college graduates than those who were in public schools 32% versus 50%.
College loans are a significant burden. Going to college at any level meant 45% have college loans of roughly $33,000. And 27% have college loans of roughly $60,000.
I was surprised to find that roughly 5% of those who got some degree felt it was not of any value in their work or career. Lower than I thought.
Examining employment income eight years after high school it turns out that only the bachelors degree made a difference in the level of income earned for those ending up earning between $15,000 and $40,000 a year. Not too surprising.
Marriage, the number of children and living alone or with parents are unrelated to education. That surprised me. I thought a bachelors degree was supportive of family formation. I thought college debt was harmful to family formation.
The overwhelming majority of people, interviewed, live within 10 miles of where they were in their sophomore year a decade later. We don’t move as much as we think we do.
When I get crosstabs I will add to this blog.