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Change in Expectations...

Monday September 24, 2007

When the Cohort Two participants were in the seventh grade in 1987, they were asked what they expected to do when they finished high school. Seventy percent said that they expected to enter a 4-year college immediately after graduation, but six years later, as high school seniors, only 57% of the same group still planned to enter a 4-year college (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Changes in expectations, grade 7 to 12.

Approximately 41% of 7th grade LSAY students planned to work full-time immediately after high school, but only 23% of high school seniors thought that they would work full-time the following year. In a similar pattern, about 13% of 7th grade LSAY students planned to enter the armed services immediately after high school, but only 8% continued to plan to enter military service by their senior year in high school.