The College Degree DivideCollege education is the foundation of change in the socioeconomic class of an individual’s life. Having a college degree always makes life easier for an individual.
Because a college degree pays off financially, every individual aspires to get one. All individuals for once in their lives aspire to be someone important, but not all individuals always achieve their aspiration in life. In the same way, every student who enters college aspires to graduate one day, but not all students end up graduating. It takes perseverance and positive mindset to stick to goals in order to achieve them and become a success in life. The rate at which college students are dropping out of college is alarming, and therefore there is a need for serious attention. Students often drop out of college because of financial problems and lack of college preparedness. When they drop out, they are faced with limited career options and lower earning capacity. Different financial problems are some of the reasons why college students often drop out of college.
Financial problems may be a situation in which monetary resources available at hand are not sufficient to pay for the transactions needed. Not having stable finances to pay for courses, to buy required course materials needed for the courses and to take care of daily personal expenses always make college students to drop out of college. According to education researcher Grace Chen, “These students typically dropped out – some with significant amount of debt and no degree to help them” (2018). Some students in the search to solve their financial problems even go as far as getting a full- time or part-time job. And this further complicates the issue the more. Because there will be problem trying to regulate the balance between work and study. College students mostly run into financial difficulties because they failed to prepare for college before enrolling.
Therefore, lack of college preparedness is another cause why students often drop out of college. College preparedness is a situation in which concrete research is done to know what college entails. College preparedness includes academic preparedness, financial preparedness, persistence, study habits, and environmental factors like family, peer group and home life. There are so many elements associated with going to college. The inability of students to search out these problems and make appropriate arrangements on how to deal with them before enrolling into college always results in students dropping out of college. According to Chen, “The problem in Pennsylvania was largely attributed to lack of student preparedness” (2018). This could be likewise in other states and countries around the world. Because of not being prepared for college, students often dropped out of college without acquiring the required skill and knowledge needed in the workforce.
One of the effects of dropping out of college is limited career options. Most of the good career options available in the workforce require a college certification. When college students drop out of college without acquiring their desired certification, they end up not getting their desired job. Their ability to compete in the workforce with graduates is limited. They are only left with small jobs that are not satisfactory in nature. They are only subjected to doing whatever their hands could find with little pay to sustain themselves.
At times, they even go as far as working two jobs to sustain themselves because the earning they make from one job can not take care of their daily expenses. Another effect of dropping out of college is lower earning capacity. Most of the college students that drop out of school always settle for lower rate jobs. Only a few of the college students that can graduate can really boost their potential in the workforce (Chen). This makes it impossible for them to be able to take responsibility of their expenses. They end up going into more debts and being unable to save money. When this happened, stress is inevitable.
Stress is a state of mental tension that comes from and adverse circumstances. When one is under stress, it is hard to think right. Worrying about financial debts triggers stress and the ability to fight against mental health problems is limited. And this can lead to very serious health problems. In conclusion, financial problems and college preparedness are some of many factors that contribute to the high rate of college students dropping out of school. The effects of dropping out of college are self-destructive.
So, there is a need to educate the college freshmen on the importance of deep research into the problems associated with college before enrolling into courses in college. It is also necessary to create awareness on the long-term destructive effects that dropping out of college will have on individual. There is a need for colleges to provide seminars and orientations for freshmen on the first-year experience. Thankfully, Prince George Community College incorporates PAS 1000 into their academic curriculum which helps new students to know all the challenges that are associated with college and providing solutions to the problems.
