According to “The 70% Solution: Meeting the Need for High Skills” by Kenneth Hoyt, http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-3/70.htm) about 70% of high school graduates enter college each fall, but only 30% of them are predicted to eventually earn a four-year college degree. Hoyt directed the Counseling for High Skills (CHS) project at Kansas State University, which was founded in 1992 with a $3.3 million grant from the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund.
Hoyt references the 1997 Occupational Outlook Quarterly, which projected that no more than 25% of job openings between 1996 and 2006 would require a college degree or more. In fact, almost two in five job openings expected required no more than two to three weeks of on-the-job training and no specified kind or amount of formal education.
The CHS project goals were to provide training for high school counselors in order to make this shift in the needs of students. Hoyt conducted a survey of 39,940 currently enrolled students in 2,145 sub-baccalaureate career-oriented programs in 361 postsecondary institutions in 14 states.
Results show a high level of motivation to learn by these students and a high-perceived rate of success and satisfaction with employment after graduating from the program. However, friends were the most common source of information about the program that they chose to attend. Only one out of ten students said their high school counselor provided this information.
Hoyt is calling for a shift in focus among high school counselors to accommodate the needs of students who are bound for sub-baccalaureate programs. Specifically, he recommends that counselors “recognize and emphasize that the concept of ‘excellence’ is applicable to all kinds and levels of education” and that there be an emphasis on more variety of opportunities for quality postsecondary career-oriented education that are available at the sub-baccalaureate level without devaluing the social and economic benefits of four-year colleges.
Furthermore, he suggests that the nearly 300,000 four-year college graduates for each year receive preparation and placement help to secure employment in occupations not requiring a four-year college degree. This is a comprehensive and meaningful study that demonstrates unmet need in high school guidance and the negative societal impact, if the situation is left unchecked. Like Dr. Kenneth Gray’s book, “Other Ways to Win,” the much-needed change is said to begin with a change in counselor attitudes. Hoyt believes this change in attitudes will occur when counselor receive adequate information about this need.
My mission is to empower youth with: - The knowledge about career possibilities, and the education and training needed to attain them - The creative-thinking and emotional skills that make for good career decisions and which employers prefer; - And the resilience needed to flourish in life.
