Poor High School Preparation Leads to High College Drop Out Rates

Introduction 

Dropping out of college has significant negative effect for the society and as an individual. Study conducted by National Bureau of Economic Research shows that approximately 1.8 million high school graduates who did ACT college entrance test in 2013 were not prepped for success in college. According to ACT, Inc, almost a quarter of high school graduate in 2012 fell short of readiness benchmarks set by ACT for college students in the four core subjects; mathematics, science, English, and reading. Therefore, due to this and many other factors, college students’ dropout rate has increased overtime due to inadequate preparation in high school. 

Literature review 

Students ready for college studies after high school have 75 percent chance of proceeding to become sophomores. Testing organization and non-profit research uses testing data that are historical in determining the level of expertise students with the urge of succeeding in those courses at a trade school, college, or technical school ( Pervin et al., 2015) . 

Poor high school preparation is a result of poor grades which lead to increased rate of college dropout. One good thing with community colleges is that your grade does not have to be necessarily good to be accepted. Once the student steps in college, they become academically frustrated due to the higher level of learning that require good mind for one to survive. Junior colleges are affordable and have alternative scheduling options but most of high school graduate do not like to enroll with them. For college students who have enrolled themselves with poor grade, some do not know what they want to do with their lives. This kind of students float around within the college while trying to get there hopes and dreams sorted out, but eventually they drop out of college to find their niche ( Horstschräer, & Sprietsma, 2015) . These students may also argue that since their parent did not attend college, yet they are successful, so, they too can become successful without completing their college studies. Evans Williams, Jan Koum, Steve Jobs, Julian Assange, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, and mark Zuckerberg are also some of the individuals who gives college students a good reason for quitting college studies. Realistically, those times of succeeding in life without college education are well over and majority of this people were well prepared in high school before joining college. The reason for students to underperform include absenteeism due to indiscipline cases or lack of school fees, lack of prerequisite knowledge from previous years, and going for work-study options. 

According to Weissmann Jordan, college dropout is an issue that need to be addressed on a public platform not only inside the academic cycles. This is everyone’s business since the issue has a direct tie to other related problems that the public rightly obsesses over; for instance, student and rising tuition debt. The college dropout in America take few college classes which make the government to stretch resources and drives up costs to every individual. Since the college dropouts have high chances of defaulting the loan payment, both taxpayers and borrowers end up suffering. In short, there is need to adequately prepare a high school student for college sessions since at the end of the day everyone end up losing ( Horstschräer, & Sprietsma, 2015) . 

Methodology 

Graduation and dropout rates vary extensively by a number of demographic characteristics of college students. Dropout rate is becoming higher as time progresses ( Hoyt, & Sorensen, 2001) . In this study, a research was conducted to high school students in 2008 who included Hispanic students, American students, students with disabilities, and English learners. The study was to determine how poor high school preparation as result to drop out in the college and university level ( Horstschräer, & Sprietsma, 2015) . A sample of 20 high school students who thought were or weren’t adequately prepared to enroll with any college in Illinois State where identified. The final year students’ email, personal contacts, and home address and location where noted down. This sample of final year students were randomly identified to avoid having a biases. Six year later, 2014, the researchers approached the same group of students they had sampled in 2008. This round, they wanted to determine their progress as far as academic is concerned in the college level. The sample had ten female and male respondents for gender equality. Some of the information that was collected include; whether the student have graduated, drop out of school ( Hoyt, & Sorensen, 2001) 

Analysis 

The analysis below was conducted using the SPSS statistical software for the data obtained from the 20 respondents in 2014. 

Hypothesis 

H 0 : The number of college dropout due to poor preparation is equal to the number of college graduates who had smooth learning. 

H 1 : The number of college dropout due to poor preparation is higher than the college graduates who had smooth learning 

Academic level
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	College Graduate	8	40.0	40.0	40.0
	College Drop Out	9	45.0	45.0	85.0
	Deceased	2	10.0	10.0	95.0
	Not traceable	1	5.0	5.0	100.0
	Total	20	100.0	100.0

The above table shows the descriptive analysis for the level of academic for the 20 participants. For the table, the number of college dropouts have the highest frequency among the four groups of college students. 

High School progress
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Smooth learning	7	35.0	35.0	35.0
	Partially prepared	13	65.0	65.0	100.0
	Total	20	100.0	100.0

The above table shows the descriptive analysis for the high school academic progress for the 20 participants. For the table, the number of “partially prepared” have the highest frequency between the two groups of high school students. 

Sex
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Male	10	50.0	50.0	50.0
	Female	10	50.0	50.0	100.0
	Total	20	100.0	100.0

The above table shows the descriptive analysis for the sex of the 20 participants. The number of male participants is equal to the number of female participants. 

The above graph is a combination of histogram and normal distribution curve. 

College Graduate 1

College Drop Out 2

Deceased 3

Not traceable 4

From the graph, we find that the number of college dropouts are more than college graduate. The second bar in the histogram represent number of college dropouts. The distribution tends to take a normal curve though it is slightly skewed to the right. Therefore, the graph confirms that the number of college dropout is higher than the number of college graduates. 

ANOVA
Academic level
	Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
Between Groups	2.848	1	2.848	4.953	.039
Within Groups	10.352	18	.575
Total	13.200	19

Based on the hypothesis, the ANOVA table helps to determine whether to accept or reject the null hypothesis stated. From the one-way ANOVA table, the p-value is greater than 0.05 (p > 0.05). This means that the p-value is in the rejection region. Therefore, we reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative; H 1 : The number of college dropout due to poor preparation is higher than the college graduates who had smooth learning. 

Academic level * High School progress Crosstabulation
Count
		High School progress		Total
		Smooth learning	poor Performance
Academic level	College Graduate	5	3	8
	College Drop Out	2	7	9
	Deceased	0	2	2
	Not tracable	0	1	1
Total		7	13	20

From the results obtained, dropout rate is higher compared to the graduation rate. A similar analysis was conducted, and it came out clear that the rate of dropouts in college has increased due to poor high school preparation ( Horstschräer, & Sprietsma, 2015) . The correlational value between poor preparation in high school and college dropout was higher compared to this study ( Horstschräer, & Sprietsma, 2015) . 

In some communities in Africa, Asia, and Europe 50 percent of college students entering second and third year fail to graduate. Because of inadequate preparation in high school, a negative outcome of dropout has been experienced in the college level. This have resulted to lower earnings in the job market, higher rate of unemployment, high rates of incarceration and criminal behavior, higher rate of mortality and poorer health, and increased dependence on assistance. It can be argued that dropping out from college due to lack of enough preparation from high school has huge social costs ( Horstschräer, & Sprietsma, 2015) . The state, local, and federal government collect little tax from college dropouts. A recent study shows that $220,000 would be generated by every new graduate into the government savings, and for every single cohort of college students, cutting down the rate of dropouts will generate approximately 43 billion dollars in a savings to society at large. 

Conclusion 

Restricting our focus on poor high school preparation, there is a widespread and longstanding interest in the issue of college dropouts and generated a vast study, particularly over the last eight years. From this statistical research, we learn that there is no single factor which can completely account for college students’ decision to proceed with his or her studies until graduation. Secondly, poor preparation in high school students is not only as a result of what happens in high school administration and how the studies are conducted but also students’ performance and behavior while in school ( Pervin et al., 2015) . Engaging in criminal and deviant behavior can lead to poor preparation to of high school students, therefore, resulting to increased number of college dropout ( Pervin et al., 2015) . 

Recommendation 

United States and other countries in the world are facing drop out crisis. A study shows that 25 percent of high school students who later enroll with college fail to graduate. 

From the analysis, we find that it is true that poor high school preparation has increased the rate of college drop out. To resolve the situation, there is need to improve college and career readiness, adopting implementing STEM initiatives and implementing the Common Core State Standards. Monitoring students’ progress right from high school, specifically on the core subject will enable them to get adequate preparation to college studies. According to Jon Whitmore, the ACT C.E.O, the excellent way of helping high school students to be successful in life is through monitoring their progress and achievement and provide necessary help whenever they are out of track for success. 

Ensuring high school students, mainly the minority students are good enough to enter workforce after completing college is important not only to the success of the students but also to economic success since many companies find it hard to get the right graduates with the necessary skill set. 

According to Whitmore, there is need for high school students to get the right academic and life skills since the advanced global economy need students to do well at their highest level to compete in the global future job market and maintain security for the long-term economy of the U.S and other countries ( Pervin et al., 2015) . 

Work Cited 

DeBerard, M. S., Spielmans, G., & Julka, D. (2004). Predictors of academic achievement and retention among college freshmen: A longitudinal study.  College student journal ,  38 (1), 66-80. 

Horstschräer, J., & Sprietsma, M. (2015). The effects of the introduction of Bachelor degrees on college enrollment and dropout rates.  Education Economics ,  23 (3), 296-317. 

Pervin, L. A., Reik, L. E., & Dalrymple, W. (2015).  The college dropout and the utilization of talent . Princeton University Press. 

Stinebrickner, R., & Stinebrickner, T. (2014). Academic performance and college dropout: Using longitudinal expectations data to estimate a learning model.  Journal of Labor Economics ,  32 (3), 601-644. 

Hoyt, J. E., & Sorensen, C. T. (2001). High school preparation, placement testing, and college remediation.  Journal of Developmental Education ,  25 (2), 26.