Generation Y? More like Generation Dropout!

How do other developed countries compare?

According to the OECD Better Life Index on education, which scores OECD countries on educational attainment, student skills and years in education, Finland is the top-performing country in terms of its educational system with an index level of 9.5 out of 10. The percentage of Finns graduating from upper secondary education easily exceeds the seventy-five percent OECD average at more than ninety percent. Finnish students also tend to perform well regardless of their socio-economic background, which, unfortunately, cannot be said of the United States or even Canada. Japan is close behind in second place with an index of 9 and Sweden follows with a score of 8.2. Canada ranks tenth with 7.5. The United States’ score is a dismal 6.9, placing it nineteenth.

Out of the thirty-four countries in the OECD, Ireland has made the most progress, with a twenty-four percentage increase in its high school completion rate between 1997 and 2010. Over ninety-six percent of those aged twenty-five and thirty-four in Ireland have completed high school, while fifty percent of fifty-five to sixty-four year olds have.

Source: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/education/

Why does this trend exist?

So why are Millennials less educated than their predecessors when they enter work force? There are a few plausible explanations.

Too Many Compulsory High School Requirements: In Canada, these vary from province to province, but in the United States, mandatory subject requirements are common in nearly all American high schools. Essentially, in order for a student to graduate with a diploma, conditions must be met, certain courses must be taken. For Americans, this includes three years of Science, four years of Mathematics and English, at least one year of physical education. Simple enough, no? However, this provides a drawback for students. If we, as a society, are constantly viewing compulsory education as something “that we must do and get over with”, where is the incentive and desire to continue into post-secondary studies? We need to shift the mindset that education is an obligation and start seeing it as a privilege to be valued and respected. We also need to stop seeing schools as merely an institution where children are being supervised by teachers, parents should be regarded as the primary instructor in the educational success of their own children.

Post-secondary schools are expensive: For decades, tuition and fees have been outpacing family income and rising faster than inflation. It’s more expensive now than ever before to send a child to a post-secondary program of study. According to the Globe and Mail, Canada spends heavily on higher education over all — nearly $24000 per student compared with an OECD average of about $14200 — ranking Canada second among all OECD countries, behind only the United States. For numerous reasons, including expensive college maintenance, increased professor salaries and increased degree demand, students will continue to face an average tuition increase every year despite much financial aid, continuing to face an uphill battle, until the cost of higher education is addressed.

New Reality in the Job Market: Since the recession, the economy has shifted, and a growing number of people have lost their jobs. Needless to say, for the past few years, a solid, full-time position is something increasingly out of reach. The labour market now consists of a surge of part-time employment, all of which do not require a post-secondary degree to have. An Accenture survey found that forty-one percent of workers who graduated from college in the past two years say they are underemployed and working in a job that doesn’t require a degree. So if our reality is mainly part-times, jobs that will never need post-secondary studies, why bother pursuing it?

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