Back
to The Challenges of Educational MalnutritionBy Stephen Clements and Edward “Skip” Kifer
From Talking Back
p. 25-54, published 2001
Even though the social, economic, and historic contexts of higher education in Kentucky shape the state’s plans to expand postsecondary enrollment, the attitudes and plans of the state’s high school students will ultimately govern participation rates. To gain insight into these attitudes and plans, the Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center collaborated with two University of Kentucky entities—the Survey Research Center and the Policy Analysis Center for Kentucky Education—during 2000 to survey high school students and thereby gain insights into the future of postsecondary education in the Commonwealth. The pages that follow present our analysis of the survey results, which we believe come at a key moment in both the postsecondary and elementary-secondary story of the Commonwealth. Higher education decisions these students make in the next few years will be pivotal in terms of determining whether the state meets the lofty education goals the Council has set.
In addition, the students who responded to this survey have spent most of their schooling years in an education system dominated by changes prompted by the 1990 KERA legislation. Perhaps not surprisingly, an important goal of KERA was to ensure that increased percentages of students made a successful transition out of high school and into adulthood. As a result, accountability scores of Kentucky high schools are determined, at least in part, based on how many students move soon after graduation into postsecondary training, a job, or the military. These students also will be entering a postsecondary education system that has recently adopted policies designed to integrate state institutions more closely and has received funds to support distinctive missions and programs. Finally, they will be entering postsecondary education during the first year of a millennium wherein extraordinary emphasis has been placed on using and mastering new technologies.
Given the goal of substantially increasing postsecondary enrollment levels in the Commonwealth, it strikes us as crucial to understand what Kentucky’s high school students think about the issues surrounding participation in more education. Why do they wish to attend community or technical colleges, or four-year colleges or universities, and how do they believe they will benefit from this learning? Are their views different from or similar to views of students in other contexts or countries? How might their values, as reflected in their perceptions and opinions, mesh with what they are likely to experience in postsecondary institutions in the Commonwealth? Those are some of the questions that can be addressed by the results of this survey. The following is a list of the questions that will be addressed in this report section based on survey findings.
Who are the students who responded to the survey?
What are their general plans for postsecondary education?
What and how did these students do academically?
How do these students rate their schools?
What are these students’ general attitudes?
Why are these students pursuing postsecondary education?
Who influenced their choices and when?
How do these students spend their time?
How knowledgeable are these students about financial assistance?
Is there a “brain drain” from Kentucky?
Before turning to specific survey results, however, we offer a few words about the survey process itself and about the general picture that emerges in this section. The intention of the collaborators in this project was to obtain as close to a random sample of Kentucky high school students as possible. Rather than identifying a target student sample through secondary schools, the project director determined that the least restrictive manner of obtaining a random sample of students was through state driver’s license records. Accordingly, Kentucky’s motor vehicle office used its database to select randomly the names and home addresses of 1,500 Kentucky driver’s license holders who were 16 as of the spring of 2000 and another 1,500 of whom were 17 as of that same time. Hence, some 3,000 16- and 17-year-olds across the state were identified as potential participants. The survey instrument itself was developed by members of the project team and was designed both to elicit information relevant to Kentucky’s postsecondary future and to reflect the few other high school student surveys that came to team members’ attention. Appendix A contains a slightly more detailed description of the sample drawing methodology, and Appendix B contains a copy of the survey questionnaire itself. UKSRC administered the paper-and-pencil survey during the summer and early fall of 2000, employing standard survey and follow-up procedures. The Center mailed the surveys to all 3,000 individuals early in the summer and then sent two follow-up postcards later in the summer to those who had not yet responded.
In terms of this snapshot of Kentucky high school students, our survey results show that college-bound youth in the Commonwealth are reasonably well poised to pursue postsecondary enrollment opportunities. On many indicators of academic, social, and economic health, these students in general compare well to their counterparts across the nation. We are less sanguine, however, about Kentucky’s high school students who are not already inclined to enroll in postsecondary education—those students defined in the previous section as “disadvantaged.” Though we cannot use survey results to shed much light on these students—for reasons we detail just below—we nevertheless believe that various findings that do emerge are relevant to the plight of disadvantaged students in Kentucky.
Of the original 3,000 survey recipients, about 1,100 students, almost 90 percent of whom were either juniors or seniors in high school, responded to the questionnaire. Table 5 provides information about the background characteristics of the students.
Table 5: Background Characteristics of Survey Respondents
Based on these demographic comparisons, it appears that students in the Kentucky high school sample compare favorably with students generally attending higher education. For example, the reported income of the Kentucky sample is similar to that reported by students nationally. About two thirds of those in each group report family incomes above $40,000, an indication that higher education plans and enrollments remain predominately middle- and upper-class phenomena. This sample, Kentucky college students in general, and students who formed the national sample are similar in terms of gender as well. In each case the majority of students are female at almost a six-to-four ratio.
While this sample is extremely useful for answering questions about the college-bound high school student population in Kentucky, it is not as representative of the total high school population as project managers were hoping it would be. For example, students in the sample come from families with higher parental education levels than the “average” for the state. Although there are no comparable data for Kentucky students and those in the national statistics, we know from recent U.S. Census Bureau statistics that about 17 percent of Kentucky adults have at least a college degree, whereas over 30 percent of the students in our sample come from homes where at least one parent has completed college. Though the sample is clearly not representative of Kentuckians in general, it may not be biased upward in terms of parents’ educational levels because a college-going population is typically composed of students whose parents have had more education.
Similarly, the sample is less representative than it should be in terms of the ethnic backgrounds of those who responded. The sample contains less than 5 percent minority students, whereas the Kentucky high school student population is around 10 percent minority. It is worth noting, as well, that neither the survey sample nor the Kentucky student population as a whole is as diverse as that of many other states. Almost 20 percent of students nationally are minority group members. Despite this disparity in minority group representation, the overall results of the survey are likely to be sound as far as the college-bound population is concerned (an additional 5 percent of minority respondents, for example, would likely not demonstrably influence the overall results). It seems reasonable to say, therefore, that responses to these survey questions can produce a realistic picture of what Kentucky’s postsecondary students of the future think and believe about various aspects of their past experiences and future expectations.
When asked about their plans for life after high school, some 95 percent of the sample students indicated they would pursue additional educational opportunities. The most recent transition data from KDE show that, statewide, around half of Kentucky high school students proceed to college within a few months of graduating. The majority of the students from the sample who were not pursuing additional education said they either planned to work or to enter the military. Only one person responded that, quite simply, he had no plans. Because such a small percentage of the sample is making no plans for further education, the majority of this report will focus on those who are. Table 6 describes the preferences of those who are continuing their education.
Table 6: Post-High School Education Plans of Students
As is evident from Table 6, almost two thirds of survey students aspire to either a private or public four-year college or university in Kentucky. This makes sense, we should add, given that roughly the same proportion of all postsecondary students in the state currently attend four-year public and private colleges and universities. About one fifth of the students plan to attend a four-year college outside of the state; hence, over 80 percent of these students plan to remain in Kentucky to pursue their educational careers. Those who appear to be headed out of state will be examined more closely in a subsequent section on the issue of a “brain drain.”
Given that about 80 percent of sample students are planning to attend a four-year college or university and that the remaining approximately 20 percent is heavily weighted, almost 10 to 1, toward attending a community or technical college rather than a trade or business school, we believe the differences among the types of institutions students plan to attend are important. Hence, a majority of the subsequent data analyses is reported according to the type of institution these individuals wish to attend, and we do not include in our results the small number of trade and business school aspirants.
The survey asked students a variety of questions about their academic preparation in high school: Are they taking college preparatory courses; how much homework do they do; what is their grade point average; and how seriously do they take tests and testing. Table 7 provides information about the academic preparation of the students.
Table 7: Academic Preparation by Postsecondary Choice
As would be expected, a higher percentage of students who were preparing for a four-year college or university took college preparatory courses than those expecting a community college or trade school education. Almost 90 percent of those students planning a four-year degree reported taking or having taken Algebra II, chemistry and physics, and a foreign language. Over half of students planning to enroll in a private college or to go out of state reported taking or having taken the most challenging high school courses available—Advanced Placement (AP) courses. That percentage was lower, however, for students bound for public universities in Kentucky.
The overall reported grade point of students in the sample is 3.39, an average that could be obtained by earning an A in 8 of 22 high school courses (while also receiving a grade of B for the rest). Grade point averages are highest among the groups that either plan to go out of state to college or plan to attend one of Kentucky’s private institutions. They are lower for students planning to attend a community college, technical school, or trade school. While this is roughly what one might expect given the academic hierarchy within American higher education, it does suggest that students who plan to attend community colleges may not be positioning themselves well to move on to four-year institutions in Kentucky or elsewhere should their postsecondary aspirations shift.
About one third of the students reported doing five hours or more of homework per week. That one-hour-a-day-or-more percentage was highest among students intending to leave the state for college and lowest among students planning to attend a community or technical college.
Almost three fourths of these students say they received advice from teachers to take pre-college courses, while a stunning amount—some 94 percent—were advised to take college entrance examinations, either the Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT) or the American College Testing Program (ACT). While we do not know what percentage of these students will actually have taken a college entrance exam by the time they graduate, it is encouraging to know they are being steered in that direction, given the importance of taking these tests to actual enrollment.
The grade-point averages of these students suggest they have done well academically in courses that (in theory) should prepare them well for additional education. And the pattern of responses—with greater preparation levels and higher grades for those planning to attend four-year schools—suggests that these students are employing a rational framework for making decisions about their post-high school plans.
However, without knowing the exact content of their high school courses or the variations in grading standards from school to school, it is difficult to assess the quality of the academic preparation of these students. Courses with similar names but different content and differing expectations are often offered to students on different academic tracks. Having taken an Algebra II course, for example, may mean different mathematical experiences, depending on what school a student attends. Until Kentucky undertakes a large-scale student-level analysis of high school assessment results in the different subject areas, it will be difficult to determine the effects on achievement and college preparedness of different courses, course sequences, and school programs.
The Commonwealth Accountability Testing System (CATS) is Kentucky’s statewide assessment, a range of tests given to students statewide, and the resulting scores are used in what is called a high-stakes accountability system for schools. Aggregated student scores are the main factor in determining whether a school is financially rewarded for greater-than-expected test score increases, commended for adequate progress, or sanctioned in a variety of ways if test scores do not improve enough or even decline. Because schools are rewarded or sanctioned on the basis of student test scores but individual students are not, many in Kentucky have questioned whether students are adequately motivated to do their best on the test and whether a lack of motivation may affect the resulting school scores. There is a postsecondary connection to this issue as well. Namely, no higher education institutions in Kentucky or anywhere else utilize CATS results, either from the tests themselves or from the writing portfolios students also prepare, to make application or placement decisions. Moreover, the newly implemented KEES higher education scholarship program is based on high school grades and is not influenced by CATS results. These facts presumably signal students that the CATS system has no personal consequences for them.
When students in this survey were asked how much effort they expended to do well on CATS tests, about one half of them said they tried to do their very best. Another 40 percent answered “I try” when asked about the effort they expend on the state assessments. This is perhaps a greater share of students indicating concern about these tests than anecdotal evidence has suggested is the case in many schools.
Table 8: Effort on CATS Assessments
However, at least two caveats suggest that these results are not cause for policymakers to be satisfied with student motivation to perform well on state assessments. First and most interestingly, students planning to leave the state—those with the highest average GPAs—were less likely to try their best, whereas those planning to attend four-year universities in Kentucky were most likely to try their best. The latter category is the only one where more than half of the students indicated they were highly motivated when taking the CATS assessments. Second, as noted earlier, these results can only be construed to apply to college-bound students in Kentucky. In many of the state’s schools, fewer than half of the students expect to pursue higher education. If only about half of the college-bound youth in Kentucky high schools give their best to these tests, it is hard to believe that significant percentages of non-college-bound youth will try any harder. When less than half the students and a majority of those who are the best prepared indicate that they did not try their best on the test, we have serious concerns about the validity of the school scores and the resulting accountability decisions. These results, in addition, make understandable the concerns expressed among school personnel about the problems of motivating students to take the statewide assessments seriously.
Various questions on the survey ask students to assign grades—A through F—to courses they have taken and services provided by their schools. These ratings seem particularly important, as noted earlier, since the students have experienced KERA policies and programs for the great majority of their schooling. Table 9 illustrates those perceptions.
The overall proportion of students who give A or B grades to their courses varies dramatically across the subject categories. The more traditional disciplines—mathematics, physical science, social science, and English—get the highest marks, while foreign language is substantially lower. What might be considered the array of services that schools are expected to provide tend to get low marks as well. In particular, career education and planning is given an A or B by less than one half of the students. Overall ratings of grading procedures, textbooks/materials, and computer skills are somewhere between those of career planning and the ratings for the more traditional disciplines.
Not surprisingly, differences in these perceptions exist among students based on the categories of schools they plan to attend. Students expecting to attend community or technical colleges or trade schools tend to give lower ratings to courses in the traditional disciplines. This may not necessarily be a matter of disagreement between them and those who are attending four-year institutions. As mentioned above, the placement of students on different academic tracks, which happens in many schools, may mean that students in the survey are evaluating different kinds of experiences. Those on higher academic tracks may be receiving the best instruction. Also, as we saw earlier, students who are not pursuing a four-year college degree devote less time to homework, so less preparation for class could help account for negative attitudes toward academic subjects. For the other “nonacademic” areas, there are no big differences among students attending various kinds of postsecondary institutions.
Although most students in the sample rate the traditional academic courses highly, it is difficult to know whether those ratings are related to KERA. Since there are no prior data for these questions, the responses may or may not indicate positive changes over time. Yet the responses are sufficiently positive for us to infer that educational reform has not harmed course offerings in Kentucky high schools.
Additional questions on the survey may provide more direct evidence about the effects of KERA. One strand of the reform, for example, has been an emphasis on technology and its use in the schools. The survey asked students a variety of questions about computing and where they acquired their computing skills. Table 10 summarizes their responses.
Table 10: Student Computing: Access, Where Learned, and How Well
Despite the fact that a substantial number of students have access to computers in their homes, the effects of computers in schools are clearly evident in their survey responses. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of students learned about word processing and using spreadsheets in school. In addition, over one third of the students report acquiring skills in using the Internet in their schools. Using e-mail is the one skill area where experiences in the home quite clearly dominate those of the school.
Not only have students acquired computing skills, they also appear capable of using them. With the exception of being able to analyze data using a spreadsheet, which less than half of the students say they can do without assistance, the remaining skills—using a word processor, the Internet and e-mail—appear to be solidly established among these students.
Thus, schools may be “evening the playing field” in areas such as computing. By giving every student access and providing them with the requisite skills, schools can compensate for lack of computing opportunities in the home. These survey data permit examination of the extent to which parents’ income and educational levels were related to having a computer and Internet connection at home. As one might expect, there are big differences associated with students’ backgrounds. Almost all children of parents in the highest income group report having a personal computer at home while less than 60 percent of children from the lowest income groups say they do. The comparable numbers for an Internet connection are 93 percent and 45 percent. Similar differences are found for levels of parents’ education. Ninety-six percent of students whose mother’s educational level is college or above report a computer at home compared with 58 percent for students of parents with the lowest educational level. Results are almost identical when comparing students with fathers from the highest education level with students whose fathers are at the lowest levels.
The differences among these groups are substantially smaller when one looks at students’ reports of how capable they consider themselves to be with computers and software. For example, students of highest parental income and lowest parental income levels report differences of only about 7 percentage points in terms of using the Internet without assistance, 13 in terms of using word processing, and about 10 when using a spreadsheet. The results are similar for both mothers’ and fathers’ education levels. For spreadsheets, the differences are 7 and 12 percentage points; for word processing, 9 and 11 percentage points; and for using the Internet, 14 and 13 percentage points. The biggest differences among the groups have to do with e-mail where, for each of the background characteristics, the differences are about 25 percentage points.
The pattern of differences between the use of word processors and spreadsheets in schools vis-a-vis the use of the Internet and e-mail may reflect a reluctance on the part of schools to confront the problems of computer “literacy.” That is, unfettered access to the Internet by students with basic computing skills—which could conceivably improve their Internet and e-mail capabilities—might also provide potentially embarrassing situations for school personnel because some students might visit inappropriate websites. Hence, school officials are presumably engaging in a balancing act, attempting to foster computer skills without exposing students to unsuitable material that is freely available over the Internet. At present, this approach seems to promote word processing and spreadsheet skills while limiting other high-technology skills somewhat.
These data suggest, in short, that the smaller gaps between students’ reports of their technology capabilities and the presence of a computer in their home are due largely to schooling. Although students of different backgrounds do not consider themselves equally capable, the differences are much smaller than they would likely be if the students did not have those experiences in schools. These seem to be among the effects of schools and of the emphasis within KERA on expanding technology available to schools.
The survey included three general attitude questions about the amount of work they have to do and their future in Kentucky, to which students could strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree. The percentage of students who responded that they “strongly agree” to these questions is shown in Table 11.
Table 11: Student Attitudes, by Postsecondary Choices, Kentucky and United States
Based on these results, Kentucky students seem well adjusted compared with students in the United States in regard to responses to the statement, “I feel overwhelmed by all I have to do.” There is almost a 10 percent difference across the board, suggesting that Kentucky youth do not feel as overwhelmed as their counterparts elsewhere in the United States. Only students who plan to leave the state for postsecondary education seem to agree with the statement, “I have to move out of the state to succeed.” However, over 20 percent of the students believe they will have to leave their hometowns or counties to succeed. An additional analysis of these data suggests that more rural students than urban ones believe they must move to succeed. Students from Kentucky’s two largest urban areas, in fact, had lower percentages of agreement than the remainder of the students. In addition, there is a negative correlation between the size of the sample by county and strongly agreeing that one had to leave home to succeed. That relationship suggests that rural students are more likely to believe their prospects are not good if they stay in the community where they grew up.
In addition, students who plan to leave the state are much more likely to strongly agree to the questions about leaving the state or leaving home to succeed. This consistency between their plans and their attitudes is expected. We would question these results if students planning to leave the state for their education would give responses similar to those who will stay on questions like these.
Eight questions on the survey concern students’ reasons for attending postsecondary institutions. Results of a survey of a sample of students from across the United States are available to provide some comparisons between Kentucky students and those in the nation on these particular questions. Table 12 shows reasons students gave for pursuing additional education.
Table 12: Reasons for Attending Postsecondary Institution, by Postsecondary Choice
A comparison of overall responses of students nationally and Kentucky students suggests both similarities and differences between these groups. Roughly equal percentages of the national and Kentucky students say they plan to pursue postsecondary education because their “parents want me to go,” “to become a more cultured person,” “to get a rewarding job,” “to make more money,” and “to get away from home.” The strongest among the above-mentioned reasons, endorsement rates above 70 percent, are those related to getting a job and making more money. Slightly less that 20 percent say they wish to get away from home.
Questions related to academic matters—whether students are preparing for graduate school, training for a career, learning about things—elicit different responses from students nationally and Kentucky students. Those differences, by margins of from 10 to 20 percent, indicate that students nationally are more likely to cite academic reasons for pursuing higher education than are Kentucky students. This is particularly true in terms of preparing for graduate work (an almost 20 percent difference) and training for a particular career (a 12 percent difference). Only about a third of either group identifies the pursuit of additional schooling as a means of becoming a more cultured person.
If Kentucky students are more likely to emphasize vocational and economic reasons rather than academic ones for attending postsecondary institutions, their responses would be consistent with the rhetoric of postsecondary educational reform that has been prominent within Kentucky in recent years. If adults create certain expectations about the economic benefits of higher education, in other words, we should not think the young could escape the influences of those expectations. We address this issue in greater detail in the next section of this report.
Student responses to these survey items differ in intriguing ways based on their college or postsecondary institution choices. For example, Kentucky students attending four-year institutions either in or out of state are much more likely to say that a reason for attending is to get a rewarding, challenging job than are students who are headed for a community college or a trade school. This is counterintuitive, since the latter schools are most often viewed in strictly vocational terms, whereas the former are seen as venues for educating college students more broadly.
As would be expected, students who say they will pursue higher education opportunities outside of the state are more likely to give as a reason “to get away from home.” These same students are also less likely to say that they wish to attend these institutions to make more money and to train for a particular career. Despite being apparently less economically motivated, these students do not endorse academic reasons for attending postsecondary institutions any more enthusiastically than do students who say they plan to make other educational choices. A possible exception to the latter is that students leaving the state are slightly more likely to want to become a more cultured person as a result of their postsecondary experiences.
A broad generalization about these responses is that Kentucky students are similar to all students nationally in terms of economic or vocational reasons for attending higher education, but are less likely than students nationally to give academic reasons for their choices. Of course, one cannot necessarily attribute those views of students to the rationales for further education promulgated by state officials. Yet it would seem desirable for students to hear justifications for higher education based on traditional educational values.
There are general differences, too, among students grouped by their postsecondary choices. One noteworthy pattern emerges among those intending to leave the state for higher education. A second comes from those who plan to attend four-year institutions, and a third comes from students planning to attend community college, technical schools, or trade schools. Students leaving the Commonwealth are less vocationally oriented in the sense of wanting to make more money or to train for a specific career. Rather, and perhaps paradoxically, those students, as well as those expecting to attend four-year schools, are more likely to want to get a rewarding, challenging job. Indeed, we discovered that the chief source of variation among survey respondents on many of the factors we analyzed had to do with the type of institution these students were planning to attend. We therefore have provided many of our results in tables that break down students based on whether they plan to attend certain kinds of postsecondary schools.
Students were asked when they decided to pursue postsecondary education and who influenced those plans. Table 13 presents these responses.
Table 13: When Decision to Attend College Was Made, by Postsecondary Choice
A crucial finding for us is that sample students report having made decisions about pursuing higher education quite early in their school careers. Over half of the students say they had made their postsecondary plans by middle school or earlier; fully 75 percent of those who say they plan to attend out-of-state schools had made this decision by this point in their lives. In fact, for students planning to enter four-year institutions, between 40 percent and almost 60 percent say their decision was made in elementary school. Although students who plan to attend either community colleges or trade schools tend to make their decisions later, the majority of students had decided by their first or second year in high school. That students perceive or remember having made such decisions so early is counterintuitive. Indeed, how do elementary school students know what they will be doing 10 years hence?
Part of the answer to this puzzle appears in students’ responses to survey items about who influenced their postsecondary decision. Students were allowed to choose multiple influences for this question; that is, they could name as many influences as they wished. Figure 8, therefore, presents results in terms of the percentage of students who chose as one of their influences persons in the given categories.
Figure 8: Percent of Students Who Say Their Choices Were Influenced by Selected Persons
The pattern of these results seems clear. Students say they are most influenced by persons in the family or home rather than by school personnel. Over 70 percent of the students mentioned that their parents influenced their choices, while the highest percentage for persons in the school setting was less than 50 percent, attributed to high school teachers. About 20 percent mentioned a high school counselor, and only about 4 percent mentioned a middle school counselor.
Taken together, these findings about who influences students and when may have serious ramifications for developing policies to encourage greater numbers of Kentucky youth to pursue postsecondary opportunities. Quite simply, schools appear to have far less influence over such decisions than do students’ families, at least among traditionally college-oriented youth. If the Commonwealth is to increase its college-going population, it would appear that changes have to be made in how parents perceive the importance of higher education. Schools may have little influence because the decisions are made early and the persons who influence them most are in the students’ own families.
The magnitude of reshaping the messages being sent by parents is substantial. When students were asked whether they were encouraged by their parents to attend college, almost 90 percent of sample students said their parents were very encouraging. As one might expect, students planning to attend four-year colleges or universities perceived more encouragement; about 95 percent of the students said their parents were very encouraging. Students planning to attend community colleges (78 percent) or trade schools (61 percent) were much less likely to perceive strong encouragement. Given the strong linkage among parental encouragement for students to attend college, decisions being made in the early grades, and student intentions to pursue postsecondary education, it seems to us crucial to focus attention on changing attitudes about higher education among parents who have not previously urged their children to attend college. Put differently, the “advantaged” youth in our survey were influenced as youngsters by their parents to continue formal schooling after high school. If disadvantaged youth in the state are to increase their postsecondary enrollment rates, we must devise ways to encourage them early in their school careers to pursue higher education.
The issues raised by these survey questions and answers are deceptively complex. Understanding the responses requires making inferences about how students interpreted the words “influence” and “encouragement.” It is clear, however, that whatever the interpretation, parents and family do influence students more and are perceived to provide more encouragement than are adults in the school setting.
Students were asked, “During the school year, about how many hours a week do you spend doing the things listed below?” They could respond in the following ways: none, less than 1 hour, 1-2 hours, 3-5 hours, 6-10 hours, 11-15 hours, 16-20 hours, and over 20 hours. The categories and responses(28) are presented in Figure 9.(29)
Figure 9: Number of Hours Students Report Spending in Various Activities Each Week
Students report spending the largest amount of their time outside school working for pay. Next in order are hanging out with friends, pursuing interests in sports or hobbies, and spending time with their families. Lowest on the list are activities such as reading the paper or serving their communities. In the middle are activities such as watching TV, talking on the telephone, and doing homework. In general, students report engaging in activities that allow them to pursue personal interests rather than broader, community ones.
A potential drawback to state leaders’ rhetorical emphasis on the economic benefits of postsecondary schooling is that this view seems likely to create persons who are better consumers, but not necessarily better citizens. Similarly, the emphasis on working for pay could create a speculative pattern of young persons becoming more consumer-oriented both in terms of material goods and greater education. More education from that point of view is simply a commodity that can provide a way to consume more.
The fact that Kentucky students report spending more time working than in most other activities should not come as a surprise. These results are comparable to findings from other studies in the United States. They are also similar to what was found in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). The TIMSS results showing how students spend their time are presented in Figure 10.
Figure 10: How Students Spend Time in Kentucky, United States, and Selected Countries
At least one caveat is associated with the Figure 10 results. Namely, the wording for the questions is somewhat different in TIMSS than in the Kentucky survey. One can, therefore, reasonably compare U.S. responses with those of students in other international systems, but not Kentucky responses to the rest. One can also compare the pattern of responses from the Kentucky survey with the other patterns. One should not, however, compare the amounts recorded for Kentucky students with the amounts computed for the United States and the international systems.
The most defensible comparisons are those made between typical U.S. students and students in other countries. In those comparisons U.S. students spend far more time working for pay than do students in other countries. U.S. students do five to ten times as much paid work as students in Sweden or the Russian Federation. (Obviously, one reason for this is likely that there are few, if any, jobs available for teenagers in some of those countries.) It is noteworthy, of course, that college-bound Kentucky students on average work fewer hours per week than do students in many other states. It should be pointed out, as well, that U.S. students also spend less time doing homework than most of their international counterparts. Only in the Netherlands is time spent on homework the lowest ranking category as it is in the United States.
How do the college attendance rates compare among the systems in these countries? Answering this question highlights the open and flexible nature of the higher education system in the United States. Namely, a greater percentage of U.S. students pursues higher education here than in the other countries, even though these students have focused less on academic matters in high school than their counterparts elsewhere. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), some 25 percent of 18- to 21-year-olds in the United States are enrolled in higher education. Comparable rates in the other countries vary from a low of 4.3 percent in Sweden to about 20 percent in France and the Netherlands.(30) It is ironic indeed that although a higher percentage of and more U.S. students will attend institutions of higher education than is the case in other countries, they appear to be spending less time preparing for it.
Despite the differences among these countries in how students say they spend their time, the most striking aspect of these data—as we noted above—is that students in the United States spend far more time working than do students in other countries. Data from other sources suggest, we should add, that relatively few American students work to support their family’s budget, although some might be accumulating resources for college. This international context makes the tangled web of consumerism and education in the United States even more vivid. The emphasis here on “growing” the economy and economic rationales for schooling seems to us to foster a kind of consumerism that may be stronger than in other countries. By the time they are in high school, American students typically have substantial expectations in terms of what they would like to purchase—from CDs to clothes and shoes to fast food, and even automobiles and insurance. If students are to join the American consumer culture, they must have money to spend. Most parents would prefer that students earn their own money to purchase these types of items. In addition, American parents typically believe that part-time jobs instill the work ethic. Moreover, numerous sectors of the American economy, especially the fast food industry, thrive due to a labor force comprised largely of readily available teenagers. Therefore, high school students work to afford the goods they like to purchase, and this willingness in turn allows many American businesses to keep costs down and goods available and affordable.
Perhaps the most incisive critique of American teen work practices was offered in Laurence Steinberg’s 1997 book Beyond the Classroom: Why School Reform Has Failed and What Parents Need to Know.(31) Steinberg’s analyses of longitudinal data on nearly 20,000 high school students showed how increased work hours prompt many students to suffer academically and many to disengage from schooling altogether. Steinberg does not say all work during high school is harmful; indeed, his research showed that employment under 15 total hours per week usually does not harm student academic performance. The results of this survey show that Kentucky college-bound youth typically work about 11 hours per week, which suggests they are generally not working “too much.” However, this is the average for survey respondents. In fact, 40 percent of the sample students report working 15 hours per week or more, a circumstance that may adversely affect their academic performance. Steinberg’s general point here is worth pondering—namely, that overemphasis on employment during one’s high school years will have a long-term negative impact by devaluing the academic enterprise. A second point is worth noting as well. Namely, if high school students were compelled to work fewer hours per week, would they spend their additional “free” time productively? It is by no means clear that this would be the case.
Since most of the students in the sample plan to attend some form of postsecondary education, they must believe they can afford to do so. Numerous questions on the survey, however, seek to learn just how much students know about various financial assistance programs. Table 14 gives those results.
Table 14: Students’ Familiarity with Various Sources of Financial Assistance
These results paint a fairly straightforward—and not very optimistic—picture. With the exception of KEES, an embarrassingly small number of students are familiar with the many and varied types of financial assistance available to them and other students. An equally surprising number are not at all familiar with these programs.
As one might expect, there are differences in familiarity with KEES depending on students’ choices for postsecondary education. Thirteen percent of community college students, 28 percent of students attending Kentucky’s four-year public universities, 43 percent of those who plan to attend Kentucky’s private schools, 33 percent of those going out of state, and 28 percent of the students planning to attend trade or business schools say they are very familiar with these programs. Yet it is somewhat disheartening that the highest level of familiarity students register about sources of financial assistance is found in the relatively small percentage of students who are familiar with KEES.
These results are likely linked to two previous findings. As discussed above, students cited parents and family members, rather than school guidance counselors, as being their primary influences in the direction of higher education. If students are unfamiliar with college funding options, perhaps this simply reflects their parents’ lack of knowledge about them.
Similarly, students in the sample rated as very low their experiences in schools with career planning. These latter results suggest that many college-bound youth in Kentucky either do not seek the advice of guidance counselors, who are generally knowledgeable about financial aid possibilities, or do so and, for reasons that are unclear, do not become well informed about this topic. These results should not be taken as an indication that high school counselors are ineffective; indeed, there are no data from the survey regarding what they do or how well they do it. Barriers of various sorts could exist that preclude counselors from dealing with issues of financing a college education and informing students of the array of financial resources that may be available to them to pursue additional education. For example, school counselors may be required to spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with discipline issues and may therefore have little time to inform students about financial assistance for college. This is likely, however, to be an arena in which policy changes could be helpful.
It has already become clear that survey results differ depending upon students’ plans for pursuing various types of postsecondary education. In particular, students who said they plan to attend out-of-state colleges or universities appeared to respond differently than other students to a variety of questions, and they also seemed to come from homes where parents had higher levels of education. Table 15 shows some of those differences.
Students who say they plan to leave the state are among the best prepared academically. They report doing more homework, taking more AP courses, and have done well academically when using grade point average as a criterion. These students are less likely to be female, come from homes that are wealthier, and have mothers and fathers who are more highly educated than those of students in the other categories of postsecondary educational choices. In addition, students planning to attend college out of state are less likely to see cost as an obstacle, are more likely to believe that one has to move out of state to succeed, are more interested in becoming cultured persons, and are more likely to want to get away from home than students in the remaining categories. In sum, they appear to be a talented group that is planning to leave the state and, by doing so, will contribute to a type of “brain drain.”
The extent to which this brain drain is a uniquely Kentucky phenomena or one shared with other states is an interesting issue. It is likely, indeed, that every state may have a brain drain problem. It may simply be the case that talented students wish, in general, to leave where they are and search for what are perceived to be greener educational pastures. Table 16 portrays data on students(32) entering or leaving their states for higher education in Kentucky and a number of its neighbors.
Table 16: The “Brain Drain”—Kentucky and Neighboring States
The percentage of students entering a state for higher education is lowest in Illinois (11) and highest in Virginia (29). Kentucky’s 17 percent is lower than the majority of these states. The highest percentage leaving the state is Illinois with 21 percent; the lowest is North Carolina with 9 percent. Again, Kentucky is among the lowest states in percentage of students leaving. Note that the Commonwealth’s 13 percent in Table 16 is lower than the 18 percent of students in this survey who indicated they were planning to leave Kentucky for higher education. That difference could reflect sampling error in the survey, a changing pattern of out-of-state attendance, or both.
In terms of differences between entering and departing students, Illinois has a huge deficit, whereas North Carolina has a large surplus. Of these neighboring states, only one other state, West Virginia, has a net deficit like Illinois. Kentucky’s numbers are in the plus category but are small in both number and percentage differences. Figures 11 and 12 display both number and percentage differences for each of the states plus the District of Columbia.
Figure 11: Difference in Number of First Year Students Entering and Leaving Kentucky
Figure 12: Percentage Difference Between Entering and Leaving First Year Students
Based on Figures 11 and 12, Kentucky is clearly in the middle of the pack, both in terms of numbers and of percentages of the differences between students who leave or enter the state for the purposes of higher education. Not only is Kentucky in the middle, but also the magnitudes of the differences for Kentucky are small. Massachusetts has almost ten times the size of the differences in terms of numbers, while Washington, D.C., has about eight times the differences in percentage.
Because these numbers do not reflect the academic preparation of the students, it is difficult to know whether there is, indeed, a net brain drain. If, however, talented students are leaving Kentucky, it would appear that their numbers are not disproportionate to those of other states. Kentucky is both in the middle and has relatively low numbers.
We would note, in addition, that the recent analysis of Georgia’s HOPE scholarship program cited early in this study suggests that Kentucky’s new and analogous effort, KEES, may well help persuade many of these talented students to stay within the state for college. Georgia’s program has not had the effect of increasing overall postsecondary enrollment in the state. Indeed, some three fourths of the students who receive the scholarship lose it at some point in their freshman year, and many drop out of college. However, many academically gifted students are applying to top state institutions, particularly the University of Georgia, which has seen its average SAT score increase substantially since the HOPE program was established. If KEES has similar effects in Kentucky, we might expect to see similar ACT score average increases at the UK and U of L.
Perhaps the more important issue about “brain drain” has less to do with where talented Kentucky students go to college and more with what they do after they complete their education. If large proportions of the students who study elsewhere return to Kentucky to pursue careers, then one might argue that their initial migration elsewhere is beneficial. Kentucky students presumably benefit from exposure to different parts of the country. Having lived in a different setting, students may return to Kentucky and use their newly acquired insights to benefit the Commonwealth. Alternatively, if many of Kentucky’s best students are educated within the state but then leave after they graduate, then the Commonwealth has a problem that cannot likely be remedied through postsecondary education reform.
To bring this discussion back to issues addressed earlier in the report, particularly the challenges of attracting and educating first-generation college students, we decided to look at many of the variables in the survey based not on where respondents intend to go to college, but on parents’ education levels. The results are shown in Table 17. These data sharply illuminate the relationships between education and income levels that are common across the states. For example, the sample students at the highest income levels come from families with one or both parents having completed college, while those at the lowest come from homes where neither parent attended college. Similarly, as one moves from lowest parental education level to highest, from left to right across the table, one finds the students having greater computer access and skills, taking more academically challenging courses, possessing higher GPAs, spending less time working for pay and more time doing homework, desiring more often to leave the state for college, and trying harder on CATS tests. Clearly, students who come from homes with greater parental education levels have a distinct advantage when it comes to an array of factors associated with preparing for success in college.
Table 17: Study Variables Presented by Parent Education Levels
On the other hand, these college-bound Kentucky youths, even those first-generation students who come from families with little or no background in higher education, appear to be generally well poised to pursue postsecondary opportunities. As discussed earlier in reference to the “pipeline steps” issue, 16- and 17-year-old high school students—those in about the 11th grade—need stronger than average GPAs, reasonably high postsecondary aspirations, and plans to take college entrance exams if they are to make the transition to college. (Presumably the final pipeline steps, application to and enrollment in a higher education institution will take place during the senior year.) As we noted early in this section, about four out of five students in our sample are planning to attend a four-year college or university. Even if Kentucky’s first-generation students in this sample intend to pursue a bachelor’s degree at a rate lower than the average of the sample as a whole, these findings suggest they still aspire to a level of postsecondary accomplishment considerably above the averages for all students.
Moreover, first-generation students in our sample had mean GPAs of 3.2, which is high enough to gain entry to all but the most competitive campuses in the state. In addition, a majority of these students have taken or will enroll in key college preparatory courses, such as Algebra II, chemistry, and a foreign language. And even though we do not know how many of the survey students will take a college entrance exam, we do know that the vast majority of them have been advised to do so. Given the high postsecondary aspirations of these students, it is our presumption that the vast majority will indeed sit for ACT or SAT examinations during their senior year in high school.
As we noted at the beginning of this chapter, however, this sample adequately captures the plans and expectations of college-bound Kentucky youth. We do not know if other students in the Commonwealth, particularly those from homes without college experience, are similarly well poised to advance beyond high school—indeed, we expect that they are not. Given the accumulation of disadvantages that often accompanies individuals and families at the lowest income and education levels, especially those in rural areas who are not near institutions of higher education, we suspect that a great many Kentucky high-school-age youth are ill-prepared in many respects to heed the Council’s exhortations to continue formal education past high school.
The tables, charts, and text above encapsulate the views of a random sample of almost 1,100 Kentucky students who responded to an array of questions about themselves, their educational plans, their beliefs, their influences, their views and experiences in Kentucky schools, and a variety of other factors. Although a tabulation of the background characteristics of the students suggests the sample does not adequately represent all high school students in the state, other characteristics of the respondents and aspects of their views that can be placed in other contexts suggest that these responses reasonably represent Kentucky students who are intending to pursue education past high school. What these students have to say, therefore, can be taken seriously and discussed in the context of issues related to participation in more schooling for more persons, as well as in a broader context of what might be the purposes of a system of postsecondary education.
These results, we believe, provide useful information for state policymakers and citizens to consider, and we have tried to interpret these findings in a helpful manner. While this survey allows us to address an array of postsecondary issues, it is not without its limitations. We were unable to learn from this sample, for example, about the relationship between Kentucky students’ postsecondary plans and the proximity of high school students to institutions of higher learning in the state. It is probable that students who live near community colleges or four-year colleges and universities know more about their postsecondary options, but we cannot verify this supposition based upon this sample of students. To learn more about this issue, as well as many other issues that influence college-going rates, it will be necessary for future studies to gather data from a sufficient sample of Kentucky students who are choosing not to pursue postsecondary education.
To view a list of all chapters in this book, click here. To read the chapters in sequential order, please follow the arrows below.
Back
to The Challenges of Educational Malnutrition
Ahead to Conclusion:
Ensuring A Better Postsecondary Future for Kentucky Students
28 These are estimated hours per week. The midpoints of the categories were used to create the estimates. Return to text.
29 It should be noted that the categories are not mutually exclusive in either Figure 9 or Figure 10. Students can, for example, be doing homework and watching television or pursuing interests in sports and hobbies and hanging out with friends. Return to text.
30 Statistics cited can be found via the National Center for Education Statistics website (www.ed.gov) and were originally produced by the International Indicators Project, Center for Educational Research and Innovation, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1995. Return to text.
31 Lawrence Steinberg, Beyond the Classroom: Why School Reform Has Failed and What Parents Need to Know (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997). Return to text.
32 Note that these are counts of students, not necessarily the most talented students. Return to text.