United States at Risk Because of the College Freshman Dropout Rate

Obviously, education is considered by most people as a survival kit for security of tenure and financial stability. Truly, many high school graduates who are enroll in college find themselves dropping off school in the first year of their college education. Admittedly, President Barack Obama’s administration knows this issue and has decided to even put out a $380 million educational budget for 2010 to assist students at risk of dropping out and to encourage high school graduates to earn an associate or bachelors degree in college. Today, college dropouts in American colleges have been steadily increasing due to inadequate academic preparation, compromising academic classes, and issues on parenthood. In the first place, Marty Nemko, a writer for the Chronicle of Higher Education stated, “Majority of students dropping out from college admits that they are underprepared for college-level work” (1).

In the article, “Freedom to Fail? The Board’s Role in Reducing College Dropout Rates.” by Stan Jones says, “ To retain students, boards should consider an approach to governance that reduces the time it takes for a student to graduate, lessens the number of choices, and provides more predictability and structure.”(Jones, Stan 20-23) At least the Boards and Government is taking charge of this issue because college dropout increasing and that can affect the future of this country. Although going to college in the United States is a high demand, there are many students who drop out in their first year school due to, high tuition, inadequate academic preparations and how their raised. One of the main reasons why students drop out is because of how they are raised. Parenthood is very important in a child’s life.

Fifty percent have cheated on exams, and 34 percent have cheated on more than one test. Research indicates similar trends among college students and even graduate students. The reason why student cheating worsen over the last decade is because of pressure from parents and teachers, technology, and school and parents failing to explain more about cheating. One of the reason students cheat on school is that too much pressure from their parents and teacher to get is the best school. These pressures lead them to cheat.

As students finish their last year of high school and get ready to take on college they will realize that they are not even close to being ready to take on the next step of life. As life advances in technology, classes are becoming harder and take more brain power to work out problems or write papers. Students are not used to using their brains because in high school their main focuses are on test and to maintain their GPA. When students move on to college to further their education and then suddenly fail, fingers are pointed at who 's to blame. Society standards continue to rise and many students can not keep up and begin to struggle emotionally.

They were surprised by the nearly 25% of students polled in the National College Health Assessment that said they experienced poor grades or dis-enrolled from a class as a result of stress. (College Students Report Stress Affects Academic Performance, 2011). Lauren P Womble (2010) from the University of North Carolina states that college students have many obstacles to overcome in order to achieve their optimal academic performance. Womble also says that it takes more than studying to achieve a successful college career and different stressors like time management, financial problems, and some students have children can even pose a threat to student academic performance. When conducting the current on the levels of stress impacting academic performance the independent variable will be the level of stress and the dependent variable will be academic performance.

Sometimes, some of these students have to leave with their education partially finished, leaving them with crushing debts. It is important to find the means to prevent these students that are victimized by skyrocketing tuitions from dropping out, and encourage all incoming high school seniors to continue their education. The reality is that the rise in college tuition is no longer affordable for the average American household. Parents cannot afford to pay for their children’s tuitions on their incomes and students are very often forced to enroll part time in order to have the time to get a job to pay for college. This very often causes a decrease in these students GPA and consequently increases the number of dropouts in the long run.

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High school dropouts are also 63 times more likely to become incarcerated than college graduates (Breslow). This also puts a huge strain on taxpayers and their families with the cost to run prisons rising each year. To counteract this massive loss of profit and potential, the reasons behind dropping out must be addressed. One of the main reasons teenagers are forced to drop out of high school is to counteract family costs. Family costs include regular bills such as mortgages, rent, car insurance, car payments, gas, grocery bills, and utilities.

College is a new chapter of a student’s life. It can be difficult at first for students to adapt. Adding new and difficult schoolwork and sports to this adaptation only makes it worst. An article published by the National Alliance on Mental Illness states “More than 40 percent of college students have felt more than an average amount of stress within the past 12 months. More than 80 percent of college students felt overwhelmed by all they had to do in the past year and 45 percent have felt things were hopeless”(nami.org).

This brings many people to the question, “What’s the worth of higher education?” People have many different answers, some being higher than others, and some being lower than others, but this job market has reached such a point that more and more Americans are changing their views whilst others are coming up with their solutions. The largest argument for why college is not worth it is because the price it cost to attend college leaves many young adults financially crippled. From the year 2003 the amount of 25-year-olds with student loan debt has shot up from 25% to 43%, with the average loan balance of over $20,000. This is a 91% increase from 2003’s average loan balance. The average student also graduates with ove... ... middle of paper ... ...uates felt that college didn’t prepare them good enough for employment, especially in their technical reasoning abilities.