<p>I feel a little bit bad for my soon-to-be-sophomore son. Several of his friends are not returning to school – all due to academic problems (admittedly, one with a severe medical issue that impacted his success). </p>
<p>I guess even very good high school students can lose their way in college. </p>
<p>How have your kid’s friends fared?</p>
<p>When you look at national stats, about half of those who start college never finish. My children’s friends have fared better than that, but I’d still say a quarter of them have taken detours or chosen to go someplace else entirely.</p>
<p>Yeah, I remember sitting through a large lecture hall meeting at my freshman orientation at U-Michigan. One of the deans gave everyone his usual “pep talk.” He told us to look at the person sitting to our right, then at the person to our left. He then said, “only one out of the three of you will be graduating four years from now.” So, from your son’s experience, I guess the high attrition rate amongst college students is alive and well.</p>
<p>I would say a fair amount of my son’s peers have dropped out or taken a “leave of absence”. the majority are still in school but most looking at 5 year “plans”. Of some interest to me is that a great number of my S’s friends in HS were athletes (himself included) and many went on to play college sports. Of those, only one is still playing with most not continuing after their freshman or soph year.</p>
<p>most of my daughters freshman dorm graduated in 4 years.
A couple transferred to cheaper schools, as they were also planning for med school, and wanted to keep grades up and costs down.
From her high school friends. most stayed at their colleges, a couple transferred from East coast schools, back to instate public- for cost as well as a better fit. KIds grounded in West coast casual, seemed to find that the East coast was fine to visit but they didn’t want to live there. 
Also kids took more than 4 years to get through school.
CHanged majors which sometimes meant a whole new set of pre-reqs, or they took time off to earn money-travel.</p>
<p>Well, actually, most of my sons’ closest friends never even started college. A couple went into the service, two started at the community college (but one dropped out of that), and the rest are working at blue collar jobs trying to decide what they want to do with their lives. The one just-graduated trumpet playing friend of my younger son (that he had hoped would come to his college) didn’t have good enough grades to make it into anything but community college, although he hopes to do better there and transfer to a four year college later on.</p>
<p>Most of the world does not live in the rarified air of cc. It makes me sad at times, because I see a lot of potential in some of those kids. But I can’t give them the money for college, and I can’t make their decisions for them. :(</p>
<p>All of my D’s new friends at college graduated in four years, but a few high school friends have not or will not. Many seemed to have taken time off to earn more money, or transferred, etc. </p>
<p>What is more surprising to me is from the group who graduated just a couple of months ago, how many are going on to just about anything but work. Most are continuing on to grad school or law school and in two cases med school, but several are doing things like traveling, biking around Canada, staying in the city for no particular reason, going back home to their families, etc. I haven’t heard of one yet who is entering the workforce or even looking for a job although I supposed there are some and it just hasn’t come up in discussion.</p>
<p>A few for sure. It happens every class. Some kids don’t handle the freedom well. Sometimes cause they never had it before. As I put it to mine, when you hit college nobody cares if you sleep in or cut classes, party till dawn 7 nights a week… So YOU’d better. </p>
<p>He’s watched a couple of friends fall by the wayside because they just couldn’t save the playtime till the work was done.</p>
<p>* haven’t heard of one yet who is entering the workforce or even looking for a job although I supposed there are some and it just hasn’t come up in discussion.*</p>
<p>Interesting
Even the students whose famlies didn’t qualify for aid, still have unsubsidized loans to pay back, so I can’t really think of any who travel apart from summers or connected to a school program.</p>
<p>Her friends from college are going to be teaching math ina quaker boarding school in Ohio, A friend who is “breaking into theatre” in NYC, one who is in a PHD program ( in psych) in one of the back east states :)- one young woman is teaching English in Taiwan. ( she has a degree in Chinese). a couple who are probably “lesser employed”, while they think about grad school, working at an animal shelter, and using their English degree only because they speak English at work!</p>
<p>One young man is in a paramedic program at the local health sciences university & D doesn’t know what she is going to do when her summer job ends, possibly get a lab tech job at the university/</p>
<p>Her friends from high school are, working in environmental field in costa rica, running a program for street kids in Brazil, teaching history at her high school, teaching English in Kashastan, doing paperwork for the marines in DC after an injury in Iraq, going into environmental law,[started</a> an industrial design company](<a href=“http://www.jamesreinhardt.com/index_f.html]started”>http://www.jamesreinhardt.com/index_f.html)</p>
<p>It was so funny the other day, because I drive by her high school on the way to her sisters school, and I saw a nice looking young man taking his bike into the school, I could tell he was too old to be a student but I was impressed by his ease at manuvering the bike, and I wondered who he was- but then I realized it was “Erik” lol
BOys especailly change( physically) so much after high school.</p>
<p>It is really fun to see what they are doing, especially when I have known them since they were little.</p>
<p>I realize since she was in “private” school, it is somewhat of a rarified group, and there is at least one of her friends, who didn’t go to a 4 year college, but has a young child as a single mom but who is attending community college, with plans to transfer.</p>
<p>But from the kids I know at the public school, they are all working as well, several in the arts ,whether with their own fashion design company, with an international dance troupe, or in set design ( which I guess is appropriate since her previous school had an arts focus)</p>
<p>What I find interesting is that many of my friends that are my age ( and older) are working in fields that their degrees aren’t really associated with.</p>
<p>My friend with a lingustics degree is working as a landscaper, a friend with an anthro degree is doing tailoring, and a friend with a math degree is a musican ( although that connection isn’t uncommon)</p>
<p>It’s funny that you started this topic today. Just on Saturday, my son got a call from one of his college friends who said that because of losing her merit scholarship (academic problems), she cannot afford to return to school in September.</p>
<p>Someone that I know, but not a friend of my son’s, is transferring after freshman year. The workload was not the issue, but the culture shock and social aspect was a problem. The young man matriculated to a small private school in the south, and he is from the NE. He found that most of the students were graduates of private high schools and very “preppy”. He is a graduate of a private parochial hs, and still felt very uncomfortable. He is going to go to a large private university in the NE this fall. Additionally, his parents paid a small fortune for one year at this school, and I am told that he did not receive very good advising, and the student was not happy with the choices that he had with respect to his freshman classes.</p>
<p>I also wanted to mention, that while some kids have had to start out slower than they anticipated, whether because of cost or interest or motivation, community colleges have gotten a bad rap at times on CC.
THere are soem less academic courses its true, but not all 4 yr university courses are academically challenging either, and it is sure a lot less expensive and stressful, to start slowly at a community college if you are unsure.
I am happy to say that even the kids I know who didn’t have a plan after high school, are now more focused and are working as well as often taking CC classes with an eye towards further education.</p>
<p>Dig, you probably remember that my daughter took a year off so that she could retake Ochem ( she also took some other courses as well, so that she could have a lighter load when she went back to Reed)
She worked about 20 hours a week as well ( which was kinda complex,since she didn’t drive and she had class during the day, then had to go to the school to run the science program then back to school for labs, all on the bus)
Perhaps his friend could take a year off to regroup?
Although I admit if it was just that her GPA slipped a little, it would be pretty frustrating to have to take a year off, but if it came down to either staying at the school or having to transfer, taking a year off might be a way to return</p>
<p>digmedia, This is one of the reasons that my son opted for the out of state public university. He was so nervous about losing thousands of dollars in merit money. This was not the only factor, but it was a consideration for him.</p>
<p>I’m relieved to hear that this is not just happening at my son’s school. I just hate it when things feel unstable. I know he will miss these three friends, but he seems much less worried about it than me (as usual).</p>
<p>northeastmom: That is the boat my second son will be in. Even if he lands a great scholarship, if it is at a school with a GPA requirement I will be very leary because he’ll be in engineering.</p>
<p>emerald - community colleges should not be getting a bad rap, and you are right to point that out. But I think a fair criticism is not with the schools themselves, but with the fact that (and it does vary by geography) many students do not take full advantage of the great economic deals and academic resources that many such community colleges have. There are of course great success stories but a large number who go to community college and just don’t ever gain the focus to finish a course of study.</p>
<p>After reading over the thread on the parents forum discussing merit scholarships, it made me wonder if schools that offer generous merit money end up with lower retention rates than schools who don’t. </p>
<p>My guess is that at those schools you have more kids on a “financial edge” - it doesn’t take much for them to no longer be able to afford it, whereas at schools with a much larger percentage of kids from very wealthy families, money is less likely to be a factor in transferring or dropping out.</p>
<p>weenie, I don’t blame you. I let my S know that if he does not make the cut that he might have to leave, b/c we could not afford what the schools tell us that we can afford. He did have 2 private schools that did make their school affordable (one with merit aid requiring a 2.8 to keep it + financial aid grant, and the other with straight financial aid). The others really did not offer my S any grant money (only significant merit money and/or loans). He opted for the state school as an out of state student. Out of the 2 private schools that offered financial aid-one he ruled out for personal reasons, and the other was #2 in the running, and he came very close to attending.</p>
<p>I think most parents and students don’t ask enough questions when they’re offered merit money and it would help to know what’s required to keep it and what percentage of students are able to meet the requirement. All students receiving merit money were academically capable students in h.s. but that does not mean they will perform the same way away from home, many for the first time, possibly very far from home. Need based financial aid seems ‘safer’ to me because if your need decreases, aren’t you lucky? Families that send kids off to college with large merit awards that the family cannot replace if things go awry are often put in a tough position a year later. It’s possible that the merit award acts as an incentive for some kids to maintain their grades. I don’t think families look at this as carefully as they should - when someone is dangling a $15 or $20,000 merit award in front of you (because you’ve been a stellar student to date) why would you ever think you’d be in danger of losing it?</p>
<p>Wennie, I think just the opposite occurs. I don’t think it is unreasonable for a college that gives merit scholarships to expect a certain level of productivity from a student. It’s not throw away money, it’s seed money for future donations from alumni. </p>
<p>While I think it might keep some going strong, I think for some kids it doesn’t matter who or how things are paid for, they just aren’t ready to make a go of it at that time. </p>
<p>Hopefully, they’ll come back and get on track.</p>
<p>weenie, I guess you might be right. College costs have climbed out of line with most everyone’s income, so I would think that upper middle class families feel that they are on the financial edge too, which is an unpopular thought on cc, but IMO, is the reality. This leaves really only some of the upper middle class, and the rich the viable option of staying without merit aid.</p>