A college acceptance isn’t a cure-all, get-out-of-jail-free card, where untold riches and lifelong prosperity are as plentiful and readily flowing as red cups filled from a college party keg.
Instead:
- FACT: 37% of all students transfer colleges at least once in a six year period.
- FACT: 33% of first year students don’t re-enroll for the second year at the same four year college.
- FACT: between 2010-2016, only 61% of college students reported seeking assistance at the career services office, the greatest percentage since the 1940’s.
- FACT: Nationwide, only 63% of students complete college after six years, while only 43% graduate in four years.
To avoid such pitfalls, effectively reducing the risk of educational malinvestment, prudent families can use the quiet lull of summer to reflect, reassess, and regroup before the next school year. Then, students can reorient the pursuit of their vision, if needed, or at the least, recommit to their vision with greater confidence in their aptitude.
Yet, college students may not ask their parents’ advice, resistant to confessing confusion, nor have trusted college advisors to candidly analyze their uncertainty. Since elementary school, many college students feign self-reliance, a facade hardened after years competing in the modern American academic meritocracy, thus partnering with others, even for one’s self-gain, is an anathema.
Thus, families often need objective advisors, specialists in the bewilderment of any maturing young adult who’s defining their purpose in this life. Then, college students can sort and analyze their views, reducing the risk of missteps which can reverberate well-beyond their 20’s.
- FACT 1: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 2022
- FACT 2: Higher Education Research Institute (HERI), UCLA, The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2019
- FACT 3: Gallup, Great Jobs. Great Lives. The Value of Career Services, Inclusive Experiences and Mentorship for College Graduates, 2016
- FACT 4: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 2022
Jill Yoshikawa has dedicated her professional life to assisting teenagers and their families in the complicated transition from childhood to adulthood, first as a classroom teacher and now as educational counsel. Contact her to schedule an appointment today.
