4 ms·

Only 10 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds have a college or advanced degree I get that they're trying to capture the demographic of recent high school grads, but

by pcr0 10y ago

Only 10 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds have a college or advanced degree I get that they're trying to capture the demographic of recent high school grads, but pushing it to something like 21-27 would give more realistic figures, and avoid conflating the figure too much with current college students.

odonnellryan 10y ago
I agree. Lots of my friends have gotten degrees, but many spent five or six years in college for various reasons. So, they didn't graduate until 23 or 24.
cableshaft 10y ago
Yeah, looks like a default demographic option they copy pasted from a different survey, but of course at least 50% of that number shouldn't be expected to have degrees yet, so it's a misleading statistic.
z4chj 10y ago
It is probably safe to assume that just about 0 percent of people under the age of 20 have a college degree (not including the few savants who graduate high school before turning 18), which essentially makes this statistic useless. It gets even worse when you take into account the commonly understood fact that it takes many students more than 4 years to complete a degree. This attempt at using a statistic that does not make sense in context really degrades the value of the entire article and makes it seem like the nations youth is worse off than it actually may be.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  > not including the few savants who graduate high school before turning 18 I graduated high school before turning 18. I never skipped a grade at any point. My final year of high school consisted of taking four classes, of which three were taken only because they were graduation requirements: "English 12", "History 12", and "Acting 3". It may shock and surprise you to hear that the content of "English 12" and "History 12" was not appreciably different from any other "english" or history classes at the school. In particular, they were not different from "English 8" and "History 8", except in that they counted toward the UC "four years of high-school-level english and history classes" requirement and the "* 8" classes technically didn't. It doesn't take a savant to graduate before turning 18. All it takes is realizing that staying in high school is stupid.
Bartweiss 10y ago
They do immediately follow that with "though many will graduate later", but it raises the question of why the author inserted a statistic that they obviously knew was irrelevant.
michaelhorton 10y ago
The article lost all credibility with me after reading that.
amalcon 10y ago
This statistic doesn't make any sense if it's an attempt to show how many people are getting college degrees, but I don't think that's what it's trying to demonstrate. It's trying to give some measure of how many young people are having trouble finding jobs because they lack college degrees. This isn't the ideal measure, surely: percentage of job-seekers 17-24 would obviously be better. In the absence of that statistic, however, it doesn't make sense to try to factor out current students. Having a job while attending university is very common, and is one of the best ways to lessen the tuition burden.

by pcr0 10y ago

odonnellryan 10y ago

I agree. Lots of my friends have gotten degrees, but many spent five or six years in college for various reasons. So, they didn't graduate until 23 or 24.

cableshaft 10y ago

Yeah, looks like a default demographic option they copy pasted from a different survey, but of course at least 50% of that number shouldn't be expected to have degrees yet, so it's a misleading statistic.

z4chj 10y ago

It is probably safe to assume that just about 0 percent of people under the age of 20 have a college degree (not including the few savants who graduate high school before turning 18), which essentially makes this statistic useless. It gets even worse when you take into account the commonly understood fact that it takes many students more than 4 years to complete a degree. This attempt at using a statistic that does not make sense in context really degrades the value of the entire article and makes it seem like the nations youth is worse off than it actually may be.

thaumasiotes 10y ago
> not including the few savants who graduate high school before turning 18 I graduated high school before turning 18. I never skipped a grade at any point. My final year of high school consisted of taking four classes, of which three were taken only because they were graduation requirements: "English 12", "History 12", and "Acting 3". It may shock and surprise you to hear that the content of "English 12" and "History 12" was not appreciably different from any other "english" or history classes at the school. In particular, they were not different from "English 8" and "History 8", except in that they counted toward the UC "four years of high-school-level english and history classes" requirement and the "* 8" classes technically didn't. It doesn't take a savant to graduate before turning 18. All it takes is realizing that staying in high school is stupid.

Bartweiss 10y ago

They do immediately follow that with "though many will graduate later", but it raises the question of why the author inserted a statistic that they obviously knew was irrelevant.

michaelhorton 10y ago

The article lost all credibility with me after reading that.

amalcon 10y ago

This statistic doesn't make any sense if it's an attempt to show how many people are getting college degrees, but I don't think that's what it's trying to demonstrate. It's trying to give some measure of how many young people are having trouble finding jobs because they lack college degrees. This isn't the ideal measure, surely: percentage of job-seekers 17-24 would obviously be better. In the absence of that statistic, however, it doesn't make sense to try to factor out current students. Having a job while attending university is very common, and is one of the best ways to lessen the tuition burden.