Another Reason to Push for Post-Secondary Education

I spend a significant amount of time in the classroom waxing poetic about my Brown experiences, in hopes of encouraging more of my students, particularly my sophomores, to think about college. The dilemma I face is not surprising -- While college matriculation was a given where I attended high school, a majority of the students I teach are resistant. This is logical -- Their parents (and most other adults in their lives) are unlikely to have attended college, so it is a giant unknown for them. I grew up accustomed to a certain lifestyle (which I knew was made possibly by my parents' college education), and so have my students. Luckily, many of the students who make it to senior year have adopted a pro-college stance. Still, there is a lot of work to do.

Why? For a lot of reasons, of course. Yet another compelling argument showed up in my Google Reader this morning, from an Economix post entitled "Do You Earn More Than Your Parents Did?" The post discusses a Bureau of Labor Statistics report, in which it was found that men today earn less than equally educated men in 1979, with the exception of the most highly educated men. Women today earn more than equally educated women in 1979, with the exception of the least educated women. This report confirms what we already know -- that, in the past 30 years, the earnings potential for the most educated has risen, while that for the leasat educated has dropped.

The report touches me in two ways:

First, health care is a great example of a booming field in which available jobs require specialized, post-secondary training, if not a college degree. I have SO MANY students who want to work in health care, as physicians, nurses, paramedics, or simply anywhere near a hospital. But very few of them have the drive to pursue their dream after high school. They are, for the most part, bright enough and personable enough to do the job. So what's holding them back? And what can I do to help?

Second, women have definitely benefited more than men in the present economic climate. One reason is that women made significantly less than men in 1979, and the income gap has since narrowed substantially. On the other hand, many fields that have traditionally attracted women, including health care, are still doing well. There are many, many frames for this discussion, but I think it is same to say that women have been more fortunate than men over the past few years. As such, it was especially troubling for me to attend Blueberry High School's graduation ceremony less than a month ago and see that two-thirds of the graduating class was female.