Student Behavior: Lack of Interest in Post-Secondary Opportunities

Educators are expressing concern as students display a lack of interest in post-secondary education opportunities citing apathy and lack of incentive for higher education as factors.

  • “Morning thoughts: I’m seeing lots of ‘anti-college’ rhetoric in students I work with independently. And while their concerns are valid, they’re missing that you still need some training or credential to obtain and maintain jobs. You can’t just waltz in and become a doctor.” —STEM Educator, Suburban
    • “I’m finding that several of them start with the ‘dollar signs’ and want to work their way back. I hear a lot of ‘I want to make @250K/yr by the time I’m 30, how can I do that?’ versus ‘I’m really interested in XYZ, how can I pursue it and turn it into a money maker?’
    • They also seem to think that degrees can hold a person back from doing things quicker and at a faster rate. Which I guess in a chronological way, it does make sense…except for some career pathways you NEED degrees in order to even get the career in the first place.
    • And this is beyond money conversations; the talk track when they speak to me about this isn’t financially driven; it’s more dangerously optimistic. They’re like ‘hey, I want to be a dentist RIGHT NOW, how can I be one without going to school?’ and that…that’s not how this works.
    • “I’m rambling at this point but the uptick in this has been maddening to me. We don’t want to set our students up for failure, but I think the rise of making it ‘look so easy’ on social media combined with what I call ‘shortcut culture’ has led to more conversations like this.” —STEM Educator, Suburban
    • “And I don’t even know what to do about it besides to provide reasonable insight as to what the pathways are to get to certain career fields. Because I’m tired of kids thinking they’ll make $400K/yr out the gate as a software engineer by playing around on http://Code.org.” —STEM Educator, Suburban

“I overheard a kid say to an adult in the building, ‘there is no incentive for me to do work here’. The adult responded with, ‘don’t you want to graduate?’ & the student responded with, ‘I need something tangible.’ And there you go. How do we change this mindset?” —High School Math Teacher, Rural