Why Do college students dropout?
It is no secret that for many years, parents, teachers, and other adults have been pushing graduating high school seniors to go to college. Many believe that a college degree is a shoe in to becoming a middle class American if not more, but many students don’t take in account the dedication, rigor, and cost of getting a higher education. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, only a shocking 46 percent of Americans complete college once they start. I believe this astounding number of college dropouts can be attributed to a number of different reasons such as the rigor of the college courses being too hard, lack of motivation, the distractions of college life, and probably the most important, financial problems.
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Financial Issues
The most obvious and widespread reason for the majority of college dropouts is because of some type of financial issue. College these days is very expensive and many students are unable to pay for this kind of investment, but almost all schools offer some type of scholarships and financial aid. In the 2009-2010 school year, 82 percent of all full-time undergraduates received some kind of financial aid and that number has only increased since then. With more scholarships being offered there will be more students who enviably lose these scholarships because of slipping grades, transferring schools, or changing majors. When these scholarships are revoked, students are left without any college funding and are forced to drop out. Students can also lose athletic scholarships if they stop playing the sport the scholarship was involved with or have a grade point average below 2.0. Although many coaches don’t want to be responsible for pulling scholarships it still happens. According to First Point USA “Athletic scholarships are yearly contracts signed by the athlete and the school; they are not four-year guarantees”.
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Students Unprepared
Unmotivated students
All of the blame cannot just be put on the schools but on the students themselves; there is sometimes a lack of motivation among certain college students that can cause bad decisions and usually failing out. The average number of skipped classes for a college student per year is 26 but without proper motivation to go to class and succeed there could be many more classes missed. Skipping just one class not only puts a student in a situation where they are behind in the course work but it also makes the student less likely to want to attend the next time they need to go to that class and can cause stress levels to go through the roof. Missing some classes is almost inevitable, but combined with shrugging off assignments and avoiding studying the results could be catastrophic to a student’s grade.
Sports are distracting
College is a completely different environment to a lot of new students and many can get caught up in the typical college distractions. Sports are big in most schools and many students play for their college’s teams, but these sports can take up a lot of a student’s time and energy. Not only do student athletes have home games, practices, and workouts, but they also have to make time for traveling to away games. The average student athlete will spend around 300 hours per year in practice and countless additional hours traveling, playing games, and meeting with their coach and staff. All the hours invested in college sports can take away from studying time and can cause classes to be missed. If the student is not responsible enough to make sure he or she makes up their missed work and spends more of their free time studying then they can fall behind and eventually fail or drop out.
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Too much Social Life?
The social aspect of college life is one of the many parts of high education that a lot of people get caught up in. With the transition from living at home with parents in high school to living in a dorm with friends in a new city at school many students get distracted from the real reason they are there. With many clubs and organizations to join, there is something for everybody to do and when some students get involved in too much they can fall behind with their schoolwork and can drop out because of failing grades. Not only do school related activities take up free time but also entertainment not affiliated with the college itself takes up most of student’s weekend. In college a student meets a lot of new people and makes new friends that they want to spend time with, so hanging out, having bull sessions, and getting to know people is very important. College is a time when people discover themselves and have fun, but if not done in moderation, it can affect the quality of a student’s schoolwork. Partying is also very big in college and it can be done safely but a lot of drop outs are the ones who let it take over and become more important than school. The average college student attends around 62 parties per year and many go to more than that. Although many smaller private schools are dry campuses there are still parties that go on and these can get people in trouble and cause dropping out or expulsion because these parties are illegal. The larger parties happen more at the colleges with many students or state schools and these are the type of parties when too much of a good thing can take a toll on a student. Avoiding studying and doing assignments can be easy with so many people around and the social aspect of college is one of the major reasons many people drop out.