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Post-Secondary education can be a very important aspect to an individual’s life. Pursuing post-secondary education and obtaining a university degree opens up a wide range of high-paying career opportunities. However, there has recently been an increase in the number of students who do not finish their program and graduate. If a university degree gives us more job opportunities and a better salary, why are students leaving their universities and not finishing their degrees? There are many macro and micro sociological factors that students deal with every day. Macro sociological factors are events or predicaments that the individual has no control over (Steckley, 2014). Micro sociological factors are events that an individual does have control over (Steckley, 2014). The students who are leaving without finishing their degrees are faced with many social and economic problems that require their attention and have priority over school. Macro sociological factors are often unpredictable and uncontrollable since the individual has no opportunity to change the …show more content…
If you have depression or you have an injury, which can interfere with your marks and ability to attend lectures and finish assignments. New mothers have to withdraw from university so that they can focus on caring for their child. If you cannot afford to pay for your tuition and your living costs then you would need to get a job instead of focusing on school. If you are unhappy with your current university you may leave and transfer to a different one. If you simply do not have the proper grades to continue, the school may force you to leave. The micro factors that were brought up in class discussion were very similar the micro factors in the SFU
According to sociologist C. Wright Mills the “Sociological Imagination is the ability to see connections between our personal experience and the larger forces of history” (Connelly, 5). In other words, a person must be able to pull away from the situation and think from an alternative point of view. Sometimes we are not the primary contributors to the problems we have. Sometimes the problems we have are structural
In today’s society, it is easy to spot someone blaming themselves for the occurrence of their personal life problems. For example, a single-mother may blame herself for not being able to support her children well due to a shortage of money and unavailability to find a decent job. Another could be a newly wed couple having daily arguments that may lead to their divorce, or women who are facing difficulties perceiving their housekeeping responsibilities and wanting to become something more than just a homemaker. These various private tensions may seem very personal. These dilemmas are all related to a bigger world called society and this is known as the sociological imagination. Sociological imagination suggests that people look at their own personal troubles as social issues and, in general try to connect their own individual encounters with the workings of society. The personal problems are closely related to societal issues such as unemployment, marriage, war and even the city life where the private troubles and the public issues become clearly apparent. With the understanding of the sociological imagination, I began to notice the daily choices I make, the classes I attend, the way I was raised by my parents, the group of people I choose to hang out with, the things I like to converse about with others are all somehow affected by public issues and what society tends to make us believe is right. There are many areas in my life where I feel that I am greatly affected by various sociological theories such as events dealing with gender and sexuality, family and culture, ethnicity and race, and social class and work.
According to Leonhardt, many people who drop out usually plan to go back eventually to get their degrees, but very few actually do. According to “Access to Attainment”, approximately 65% of all job openings will require postsecondary education by the year 2020 and “many of the long-standing programs and policies designed to foster access no longer supports the needs of today’s students” (Miller, et al. 5). The availability of higher education to the public has greatly changed over time, and thus the system and the programs must adapt as well to continue providing the best access and opportunities possible to individuals. “….a college education matters much more now than it once did” (Leonhardt). Lower-class students coming from low-income high schools might not have the same opportunities for learning as their upper-class counterparts, and as a result they are less likely to be accepted to elite universities. The education system is beneficial for many but it is flawed as well, especially in preparing high schoolers for college, which has the potential to greatly impact their
According to current estimates approximately 75 percent of college students are now nontraditional students – older than 25, attending school part time, and having delayed entry or reentry into college for a variety of personal reasons. Post secondary education is needed by such students to develop their careers and to acquire new skills and knowledge in a global society where they are likely to have longer life spans than did workers in the past. This trend is not restricted to North America; it is a worldwide phenomenon.
In this article Nemko is illuminating the issues that our modern society is facing involving higher education. Students are starting off college with bare minimum requirements for next level learning and feeling disappointed when they are not succeeding in their courses. The author acknowledges that the courses being taken by students are sometimes not beneficial to life after college. Nemko states, “A 2006 study supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 50 percent of college seniors scored below ‘proficient’ levels on a test that required them to do such basic tasks…”(525). Students are specializing in areas of learning to in turn be denied to working in that field and stuck with unnecessary skills. “Many college graduates are forced to take some very nonprofessional positions, such as driving a truck or tending bar”( ...
As the numbers of college graduates employment have increased for each years, many people have being debating that whether everyone should have college education and whether college education still worth it for everyone. Some people found that they did not gain the benefits that they wish from college education, and some people found that they still could not find the job they desire after they spent all the money they have on college education and being in heavy debts. Therefore, people started to believe that colleges are not designed for everyone, and force oneself to attend colleges could lead to negative outcomes. Consequently, people who cannot afford to attend colleges, who do not have adequate academic skills to be successful in colleges,
Some students also attend and realize that college is not for them. At this point, they may easily become influenced by peer pressure and exhibit poor judgment. Many students look up to their parents as role models to help them decide whether they should even go to college themselves. It can be obvious to a second-generation college student of the benefits of a college education when they observe the success that their parents gain by being first generation college students. This is also reinforced when they observe the current job market. “Indeed, after World War II, the difference between the average wages of high school and college graduates was small and shrinking. After 1950, however, the trend moved in the opposite direction and accelerated as the demand for highly skilled labor increased (Brock 3)”. The bachelor’s degree received today has the same relevance as a high school diploma did in the
A very dramatic educational development in the past decades has been the global expansion of higher education. Harvard economist Richard Freeman has estimated that the total number of post-secondary students (students who continue school past the required level) fell from 29% to 12% from 1970 to 2006, a 60% decline. In China alone, postsecondary enrollments exploded from fewer than 100,000 students in 1970 to 23.4 million in 2006. The increase over the same period in India was from 2.5 million to 12.9 million students. According to the EPE on average there are 1.1 million American students dropping out of school every...
Heading to a university is terrifying, yet earning any type of degree will lead students to success. According to the National Dropout Prevention CenterNetwork, 24% of high school drop outs end up homeless due to not attending college. It is proven that young adults are well off with a Bachelor’s degree compared to a high school diploma; a degree will give young adults the opportunity to have a stable financial background (15). Since all occupations
With the cost of education rising and no stop in sight, many students are beginning to question the worthiness of a college education. It is commonly known that individuals who go to school will make more money over their life time compared to someone who does not. This is a great motivator for many wanting to go. An article written by The Economist
It seems as though the majority of college students these days aren’t looking to further their education because it’s what they really want, they do it to please their parents, to be accepted by society, or because there’s nothing else for them to do (Bird, 372). These expectations have led to students being unhappy and stressed, and have pushed them into a school or a job that they don’t particularly care for.
It makes their family’s life become tough. They raise a question that why not letting these students go to work instead of this worthless education. As what is mentioned in the article “College degree still worth the investment, data suggest”, the author Mary Beth Marklein shows many evidences to support her main idea that the college education is still worth to invest because it can give college graduates higher wages. She showed the audiences a data, which pointed out that college graduates earned generally 56% higher that people who only have a high school diploma in the past four years. The author also said, “From 1982 to 2001, bachelor 's degree holders earned an average 80% more and associate 's degree-holders almost 30% more than workers with no more than a high school diploma”. The similar contents are also presented in the article “Median Salary Up Two Percent for Higher Education Professionals”. The author insists that the higher degree you get, the higher salary you will earn. In other word, it’s the truth that the college students might have heavy loans when they decided to go to college, but they
As per class discussion, some societal level (macro) reasons for students dropping out of university were: the raise of tuition so the student having to take a year off to generate income, having to drop out due to criminal offence and/or dropping out because the course the student wanted was not being offered. Some individual level (micro) reasons we discussed were because: the student’s inability to handle workload, lacking enjoyment in chosen discipline and/or transferring
Determining factors that shape students’ successful completion at university has been a prevalent topic in the higher education sector to address attrition issues. The aim of this paper is to focus on the impact of socio-cultural factors of student’s lives on university expectations, success and completion. Through qualitative methodology; focus group, interview and ethnography, this paper explores the role of social environment on university aspirations and what social-cultural factors influence success. The findings indicate that university success is influenced by parental expectations and conflicting priorities; and university success is a consequence of family and friends supportive role. The findings implicate that although prior research focuses on individual characteristics of students’ higher education aspirations and success, the social structure resources students rely on plays a critical role in understanding student engagement and attrition at university.
Students who decide they no longer want to pursue a degree limit their opportunities by losing out on the money they have already invested in their education. This money could have been spent on something that would have benefited them throughout their life. Colleges and universities persuade us to believe that everyone graduates, but students drop out at an alarming rate, those who drop out of college are commonly left with debt from loans and job skills that will not help them acquire a job in the modern day industry. (Rath) Now that the student has forfeited their degree, they no longer are attempting to compete within working industry. Jobs that require a degree are no longer within this person’s reach, he has to settle for a lower paying job and he potentially misses out on the higher paying job due to forfeiting his