With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them
Most young adults who started college but didn't finish left because they needed to work more to make ends meet, according to "With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them", a survey designed to compare students who started, but didn't finish, their college education with those who received a degree.
Most of those who failed to graduate were not getting financial aid or support from their families. Generally speaking, those students also had more limited options in choosing a college and took a much more haphazard route to their selection than those who graduated.
This report is the first in a series of studies underwritten by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In addition to the full report, we also have a video of young Americans talking about their own experiences with obstacles to graduating from college.
Click here to read the second report in this series, "Can I Get A Little Advice Here?: How An Overstretched High School Guidance System Is Undermining Students' College Aspirations." The third report is set for release later this year.
Tags: 
Thank you for assembling a valuable data set on a critical topic- retention. I have been activley involved in this area for the past 15 years and would like to ask if your raw data are available for additional collaborative study. Specifically, by grouping all of the subsectors of postsecondary education together we lose some valuable insights.
What I would like to either do my self or suggest that you do is to separate the data first between public community colleges and public four year universities. I have done this in Florida and the results are very different and thus the strategies to improve are also. It is my experience that the strategies for success are very different for community college students than they are for university students.
Post new comment