Interest in pursuing education beyond high school has dropped significantly among Vermont seniors since 2018, with the greatest decrease among students whose parents did not complete a four-year college degree. Those are the findings of the latest survey of high school students in their final year by the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation.
The 2022 survey, which is conducted every two years except in 2020 due to Covid-19, also illustrates the long-stretching effects of the pandemic. Nearly one in five seniors reported that the pandemic affected their post-high school plans in some way — by causing them to choose a school closer to home, rethink college, or decide to defer or take a gap year.
While the number of students saying they will enroll in college in the fall after graduation has hovered around 75% since 2012, it dropped to 70% in the latest survey.
“What concerns me about these numbers … is the substantial number that are reporting that they either don’t have a plan or they don’t know how to obtain the training they’re going to need in order to be able to pursue their plans,” said Scott Giles, president and CEO of VSAC, a nonprofit agency that aims to help Vermonters achieve their goals after high school.
“We’ve got to figure out how to reach and provide (students) the support they need in order to be able to obtain the education or training you know, that makes sense from them or that will allow them to pursue their goals,” Giles said.
Vermont teens rate higher than the national average in their plans for post-secondary studies. According to 2021 data from the National Center for Education Statistics, 62% of students immediately continued their education after graduating.
The survey also shows a widening aspirational gender gap, particularly for high-schoolers without a parent who has completed a four-year college degree. Male first-generation students continuously rank the lowest in their aspiration to pursue further education. Since 2018, the number of teens in that demographic saying they will attend college dropped from 58% to 45%.
“(What) we have got going on is a perception, you know, often correct, but not always correct, by young men, particularly first-gen. men, that there are economic opportunities available to them that don’t require anything,” Giles said.
This gender gap follows a national trend as in 2021, 58% of people enrolled in college are female, according to the National Center for Education Statistics
According to Giles, the reason that girls have greater aspirations for higher education is in part due to the fact that traditional career options for women, such as nursing or teaching, all require a post-secondary education.
However, girls also report much more frequently that they feel their parents want them to continue their education.
Overall, however, all students say parental expectations are declining. This is true for children whose parents have college degrees and for those who don’t. However, the percentage of students who believe that their parents want them to continue their education is much lower among first-generation high schoolers, with only 39% reporting that, versus 61% for those with at least one parent who completed a four-year degree.
According to Giles, parents who did not attend college do not have any experience to validate the investment and uncertain outcomes that come with going to college. He said they are more anxious now about whether college will yield the same returns it has traditionally done.
However, Giles emphasized the importance of pursuing education, especially in Vermont.
“Low unemployment rate, lots of job openings, they all require skill, you know many of them, if not all of them, require some skill level and our ability statewide to kind of achieve both our economic development and our workforce goals means that we’ve got to find ways to maximize the capacity of every Vermonter to contribute,” he said.
