Higher education is essential as it leads to considerable benefit, including financial security and a prosperous career. In most cases, having graduated from high school does not guarantee one with a chance to access many rewarding careers. With the transformation of the economy from manufacturing-based to knowledge-based on indicates the significance of higher education is paramount. However, despite a majority of students being eligible to join college, most of them are not ready for postsecondary education. After students enroll for the colleges, they are forced to take remedial classes in Mathematics or English that have no role to play in earning college credits. The lack of college education preparedness is the main cause of low graduation, as majorities of the students do not complete their college degrees.
Various factors contribute towards the lack of college unpreparedness among students such as education system, guardians’ knowledge about college and student’s interest towards college. According to Jenkins & Fink (2016), despite many students join college, only a few will finish. The current high school education systems has failed in preparing students for college. The high schools offer students advanced placement courses aimed at replicating college courses. However, they are few in number and mots students do not find them being helpful. Likewise, mots parents who have not attended colleges especially from low-income families do not have an awareness of higher education. Such parents will fail in guiding their children once they complete high school and prepare to join college. Additionally, most of the students are not sure or convinced about the major they are taking. This makes them to develop an undecided attitude eventually opting to drop out. It as a result of this that a majority of the colleges are forced to set up remedial classes to ensure that students that are not ready for college get a kick start to it.
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For students to successfully go through college, they need to be well prepared academically and mentally. A lot happens in college, such as self-awareness, knowing how to manage your finances, and above all, having the right company. It is also evident that students whose parents never went to college happen to be among the most unprepared. It is because they lack the guidance to navigate the college world and manage to complete; hence they end up dropping out. When we focus on academics, a large number of graduates from high school are unable to finish, and one in four students are not quite ready to take Math or English courses. In places such as Tennessee, just 16.8 percent of students from high school have good grades on tests that are standardized on subjects like Science, Math, Language, and Writing. High schools rate themselves on the number of graduates they produce while colleges benefit from taking the most significant amounts of new students (Bailey, Jaggars & Jenkins 2015).
The continued miscommunication between high school and college administrators has contributed towards increased unpreparedness of students set to join higher education institutions. According to Bailey et al. (2015), the administrators from high school and colleges have continue to blame each other of the lack of student readiness. However, the two sides have failed to acknowledge this is a problem. In the state of New York, just 40 percent from the ninth-grade lot manage to secure direct college entries, and only 19 percent manage to stay in college within six years. The problem should be identified and mitigated before the end results cripple our economy in the long run. Students need assessment and constant guidance to ensure their study path is in line with their abilities and career goals.
There is a need to come up with strategies to avoid having a large number of college dropouts or unprepared college students. The EdReady learning system is customized to suit students from 7th grade and above by testing their abilities in English and Math. The program's outlines a framework that provides the resources needed to accomplish the college expectations by preparing for placement exams like Accuplacer and the ACT (Smajstrla, 2018). The only downside to using Ed Ready is that if the student lacks the initiative, it would be a waste of resources. Every student must display higher levels of commitment towards the guidelines outlined by the program. This can include trying out internships and apprenticeships, which will enable the students to get a hands-on experience. During the internship, a student will determine whether the career is right and if there is a need to take up a course related to it in college. In case it is not, the student can select another occupation. The internship opportunities offered by the program enable a student to have a chance in saving up for college and join when fully ready.
School leaver programs can also aid in increasing the readiness of students once they join college. Through the programs, one is able to interact with other school leavers. The activities carried out by the students will help in steering them into a direction that leads them to their dream jobs and careers as the programs help them commit and put in the work. These programs incorporate post-secondary remediation, although there has been a lot of doubt if it is useful in assisting students in graduating from college in the long run (Entwistle & Ramsden, 2015). Gap years are advisable as long as the reason and the plan for the activities done during the gap year takes the student a step forward to getting their college certificate and a better position in the job market. Gap years will make students to take a break from studying and pursue other interests. However, this is bound to negatively affect the students’ academic achievement, as one will be forced to take remedial classes. In case the gap year was not put into good use, most institutions will not use it in to determine your readmission.
Although all the above alternatives seem reasonable, they are not accepted in the 21st-century corporate world. The reason is that college certificates are more valued in the job market as compared to apprenticeships and educational programs. The employers have not been able to sustain these institutions, thus, there is low pay and not enough training (Ryan & Lőrinc, 2018). Students mostly get distracted easily with the earnings they get and drift away from thoughts of going back to college and completing their courses. The alternatives are applicable, but if we focus so much on them, then our higher education system will not get the development needed to incorporate every student.
The community college has not been well received over the years due to the doubt about their efficiencies. However, there are programs such as Accelerated Developmental Programmes that have been implemented to help unprepared students finish their remediation and enroll in college (Jaggars, Hodara, Cho, & Xu, 2015). The developmental education is, however, optional for students who can be exempted, it is thereby vital for teachers to understand the enrolment choices frequently made concerning their academic success.
The introduction of getaway courses enabled students to excel in their chosen major. Students can complete the courses that are required to get into the major they settled on in a short period (Woods, Park, Hu & Bertrand, 2019). Florida legislation has incorporated both developmental and getaway courses in the same semester whereby students can take them concurrently. The system has attracted interest from researchers and policymakers as it has been proven that students are more likely to finish college if fast progress is made on their degree (Strayhorn, 2018). States such as Connecticut and Indiana have done their best to implement policies to enhance success in their community colleges. This increased rate of developing education in states is an indication that it is important to reduce the dropout numbers as they will inflict in the future economy.
The use of assessment measures to test students' readiness and suitable placement in the correct study path, be it developmental, getaway, or college coursework is vital towards eliminating college unpreparedness. . Several things should be looked into, such as the SAT scores, the overall high school GPA, the best subjects they excel in, advanced courses, and the time spent out of high school before joining college to reduce chances of misplacement. Performing pre-tests on students to enable them to recall subjects that they have already been taught to be able to identify the changes that have occurred and know those ready and those that still need tutoring (Entwistle & Ramsden, 2015).
A collaboration between high schools and Early Assessment Programs allows students to interact with program trainers. Trainers will give students placements that are more appropriate, identify at-risk students to intervene and prepare them for college before it is too late (Jenkins & Fink, 2016). Creating awareness through these programs on the need to build skills in specific areas gives a chance for the students and families to salvage the situation before college. The Educational Institutions, government, policymakers teachers should keep on finding new ideas that will raise the numbers of college graduates and student success through developmental education. Stakeholders, including students, should take the initiative to steer their future and the economy in the right direction.
Through the Science, Technology Engineering, and Mathematics education system, the state has a chance to equip the stakeholders of its benefits highly. Guardians being part of the stakeholders are advised to familiarize themselves with the STEM educational program as well and help their children identify their strengths and give them the resources to develop what they are right. The Stem program should be considered not just an extra educational program but be incorporated in the education system and availed to all students (Bailey et al., 2015). It is an eye-opener for students at a very early age to identify what they can do and strive to be better at it.
References
Bailey, T. R., Jaggars, S. S., & Jenkins, D. (2015). Redesigning America's community colleges: A clearer path to student success . Harvard University Press.
Entwistle, N., & Ramsden, P. (2015). Understanding student learning (routledge revivals) . Routledge.
Jaggars, S. S., Hodara, M., Cho, S. W., & Xu, D. (2015). Three accelerated developmental education programs: Features, student outcomes, and implications. Community College Review , 43 (1), 3-26.
Jenkins, P. D., & Fink, J. (2016). Tracking transfer: New measures of institutional and state effectiveness in helping community college students attain bachelor’s degrees.
Ryan, L., & Lőrinc, M. (2018). Perceptions, prejudices and possibilities: young people narrating apprenticeship experiences. British Journal of sociology of Education , 39 (6), 762-777.
Smajstrla, A. M. (2018). Ensuring College Readiness Through the Use of Edready (Doctoral dissertation, Dallas Baptist University).
Strayhorn, T. L. (2018). College students' sense of belonging: A key to educational success for all students . Routledge.
Woods, C. S., Park, T., Hu, S., & Bertrand Jones, T. (2019). Reading, writing, and English course pathways when developmental education is optional: Course enrollment and success for underprepared first-time-in-college students. Community college journal of research and practice , 43 (1), 5-25.
