Ramp-Up to Readiness

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In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity—it is a pre-requisite…And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training.

President Barack Obama, speech to Congress, February 24, 2009

There is a new movement emphasizing the need for education after high school. In the 20th century, high schools that graduated most of their students, with about one-third obtaining a college degree, filled the needs of the workforce. That won’t work in the 21st-century global economy.

Postsecondary education is important for the individual

We’ve long known that higher levels of education result in increased earnings over a lifetime, as demonstrated by the first graph below. Post-high school degrees also mean a higher likelihood of employment:

Source: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. View data table for this graph.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 Public Use Microdata Samples (based on the 2000 Decennial Census).
View data table for this graph.

Postsecondary education is also vital for Minnesota

In Minnesota, the estimated job growth for the college-educated workforce is expected to grow significantly, while the number of people with college degrees is expected to stagnate.

Today, 55 percent of the public believes college is a necessity to be successful in today’s work world, up from 31percent in 2000.^cit.Immerwahr, J. & Johnson, J. (2009). Squeeze Play 2009: The Public’s View on College Costs Today, Public Agenda for the National Center of Public Policy and Higher Education Unfortunately, the United States is no longer a leader in the production of college degrees, and ranks only 16th internationally.^cit.Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (2009), Education at a Glance, p. 65, retrieved at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/41/25/43636332.pdf The United States has slowed down while many other countries are racing ahead.

View data table for this graph.

Readiness for postsecondary education: Our hopes and the reality

Minnesota students want to go on to higher education and their parents want them to go. A survey of 4,050 Minnesota high school students found 97 percent wanted to go to college. 99.3 percent of their parents hope their child would continue his/her education, and 96.3 percent said it was a realistic goal for their child to graduate from college.^cit.CAREI Ramp-Up survey

Academic readiness in Minnesota

Despite these hopes and expectations, too few students graduate college-ready. Only 32 percent of the 43,000 Minnesota students who took the ACT in 2009 and were scheduled to graduate in 2009 scored at the ‘college-ready’ level in all four areas tested: algebra, English composition, social studies and biology.

Source: Source: ACT, Measuring College and Career Readiness: The Class of 2009.
View data table for this graph.

And so when they get to higher education, they need to retake what are supposed to be high school courses. Thirty-eight percent of Minnesota’s 2005 public high school graduates who attended Minnesota public higher education took at least one remedial course (usually math), for which they had to pay tuition and did not receive college credit. The number rose to 48 percent of students enrolled in Minnesota technical and community colleges; it dropped slightly to 29 percent for those enrolled in state university campuses.^cit.Minnesota State Colleges & Universities, and University of Minnesota (2008). Getting Prepared: A 2008 Report on Recent High School Graduates Who Took Developmental/Remedial Courses.

Building habits for success

The challenge isn’t just academic knowledge and skills. It is also developing habits of persistence and hard work. For example, a Ramp-Up survey of Minnesota high school students found that 67 percent do not give up fun or socializing for school work. Forty-one percent reported that they do not ask for help when they don’t understand something in class.^cit.CAREI Ramp-Up survey Unfortunately these are familiar issues for parents and educators, but without those habits and skills, students will find independent academic work in college to be extremely difficult.^cit.CAREI Ramp-Up survey

The financial side of readiness

Families also need help preparing to pay for college. According to a recent national survey, 67 percent of the public believe there are many people who are qualified to go to college, but don’t have the opportunity to attend.^cit.Immerwahr, J. & Johnson, J. (2009). Squeeze Play 2009: The Public’s View on College Costs Today, Public Agenda for the National Center of Public Policy and Higher Education Why not? In a Ramp-Up survey, 47 percent of parents did not know the different options for financing a college education.

Readiness for postsecondary education must involve everyone

The student demographic groups that are growing fastest in Minnesota – in fact, the only ones that are growing at all – are the groups who have historically had the least access to and success in higher education. The numbers of Latino, Black, and Asian Minnesotans are expected to more than double over the next 30 years, with growth occurring in every county of the state.^cit.Minnesota State Demographic Center, (January 2009). Minnesota Population Projections by Race and Hispanic Origins, 2005-2035, OSD-09-136.

Traditionally school counselors are responsible for many of these issues, but they simply can’t do it alone. Minnesota’s ratio of school counselors to students is approximately 799 students per counselor – only two states in the country are higher.^cit.American Student Counselor Association, data from NCES Common Core Data (CCD), “State Nonfiscal Survey of Public Elementary/Secondary Education: 2006-2007 School Year”, http://asca2.timberlakepublishing.com/files/ratios%281%29.pdf Instead, it must be integrated into the very fabric of how a school operates.

In short, addressing these challenges requires seeing every student as “college material” and every school as a “prep school”.