College Dropout

Nowadays, the college dropout rate is increasing every year. “Nationwide, only 37 per cent of students who enroll as freshmen at a four-year university earn a degree within four years” (Moore par.3). This is an alarming knowledge that encourages us to look into some of the main reasons of the college dropout. Students partying, having academic, financial, and personal problems are some of the wide-spread issues causing the low earned degree rate and high dropout rate.

The amount of academic work is one of the major factors in dropouts. Unfortunately, students are usually unprepared for the rigorous academic effort required for college. Some students get through high school with little or no studying. Therefore, they will face the bitter truth of being completely unprepared once they get to college.  One of the underlying reasons for lack of preparation to college is the fact that students at high schools are deprived from being challenged. Many students take classes that do not push them to exceed college level bar. They take inconsiderable classes to avoid homework and any thinking process required for that. When the students attend college, they are boggled by the difficulty of the classes. The students sometimes expect the professors to babysit them and excuse their missing work or an unattended test. However, college professors expect students to read and learn on their own outside of class. If the students don’t this, their grades will decline. A semester of bad grades usually discourages some of the students and ultimately causes them to quit college.

Another reason for college dropout is excessive partying and drug abuse. Freshman students sometimes get carried away with hanging out with friends and partying. They forget to work on their projects or study for a test and eventually realize their grades are slipping. Sooner or later, they start having too much fun and lose sight of college. Some students will get involved in drugs. Weed, cocaine, and alcohol are the main culprits of student addiction. Students who get addicted start to fail and forget to attend classes. Eventually, the students will drop out and develop bad habits, which will affect them later in life.

Also, a lack of financial support makes it nearly impossible for students to pay for college. Specifically, parents that struggle with their jobs and are unemployed have trouble supporting their child through college. Some students do not have the financial support from their parents to pay for college and try to use loans to cover their tuition Students sometimes get overwhelmed in debt and dropout before getting buried in it. Students also take out part time jobs or engage in work-study. They soon realize that they cannot handle the college workload and the job at the same time.

Furthermore, many students become homesick and get tied to family commitments. Students that end up going to a college far from home, tend to miss family, friend and relatives. They can lose focus on college and travel home more often. Such students are most likely to drop out of college and enroll in a community college near home instead. Students with families to support have to put their family and children first, which is more important than their classes. For example, students have to take care of their struggling family and attend college. They have to hold a job while also studying. Sometimes that becomes overwhelming for the student. The student will start dropping classes and then college. Some students have a family business to commit to; and the parents will expect their children to do their jobs. Sometimes even parents themselves pull their kid out of college and force their child to fully work on their business. For example, this can happen in the hotel business where the level of commitment to the business is extremely high. When starting to expand to multiple hotels, the start to rely on their children to take care of new units. It might happen that when business experiences some economic pressure and the kids are distracted by college, the parents force the child to quit the college and work for the business.

Moreover, it is often the case that students pick wrong colleges to attend and wrong majors to master. For instance, some people can become overwhelmed by a large number of students on campus causing them to leave the college. Students may begin to experience negative feelings towards college as a result of their uncomfortable state; and the effects of this are likely to occur in the classrooms. One of the oldest problems with education is choosing a wrong major. For example, students who want to go into the medical field will need to struggle through the variety of biological courses and suddenly realize that this is not something they want to do. If they are too late to change their major the students are likely to get frustrated as they face the career they don’t like. This scenario is far too wide-spread to neglect it. It is important to help young people choose the field of study that suits their abilities and potential.

Finally, students have family emergences that affect them at college. A death in the family, an unplanned pregnancy or a chronic health problem can all occur out of nowhere. For instance, if a student’s family member has a stroke and is in need for critical care the student will likely dropout of college to take care of a family member. To avoid dropping out, the students need to be careful when choosing a college with good academic leave programs. It is beneficial when colleges allow the students to have flexible schedules and possibility to have an academic leave without any academic penalty.

As can be seen from the discussion above, dropping out is caused by many factors and is increasing by every year that goes by. Of course as Trust senior analyst Kevin Carey notes, “Students who feel part of their institutions, who are engaged” are more likely to finish in four years (CS Monitor par. 6). Students need to be part of the college in order to be comfortable and lower the chances of dropping out. Many factors and boundaries prevent students from staying in the colleges, but some necessary chances in education to improve college level readiness and rules to prevent students from partying could help decrease dropout rate.