Conclusion and Future

The difference between our adult's and student's survey is very note worthy. All of the students surveyed attend or have attended college which gives a bias to our results. Even with this set-back, feedback from students demonstrate the wide range of high schools attended across Texas which show a variety of peer and societal pressures, these students faced.  The statistics provided by the census bureau supports our data that around 70% of graduating seniors go to college. 

        Among the adults about 40% went to college, which is slightly higher than our results because we did not have ample interviewers. However, from our statistics and the responses received, we can conclude that college was not the primary choice after graduation. It did not even compete fore second choice since individuals that did not go to the work force tended to join the military.  

The change in educational value between our parents and grandparents to us can be explained by the cultural shift. Due to technological advances in sciences and recent discoveries in new fields the job market has opened a lot of new field positions.  These new field positions require a higher level of education and specificity which creates a higher emphasis education.  Higher education has created stability and safety for member of society.

What does the future of college education hold in America? We asked both the peers and adults to be minor prophets and predict what will happen. The results are shown below:

The adults were more unanimous in their vision. They said that since more people are getting an education, companies are able to select the most qualified for the job; usually the individuals with higher education. A few said that it would be easier to get a higher education because of more institutions, online schools, ease of access to community colleges, and more emphasized placed on aid to go to school. On the other end of the spectrum, some said that the flaky economy, inflation, and shrinking of the middle class would make it harder to obtain an education. One adult predicts that future college students would have to get a masters or doctorate degree to be competitive in the work place; that a bachelors degree would became the new high school diploma.

The students were all across the board. Many said education would continue to rise in importance, while others responded that with so many people getting degrees the importance of it might actually decrease slightly or stay at its current level. They believe higher education would cause higher standards and more  competition in the work force, but also less since more specificity would arise.  Some said that rising tuition and inflation might keep those who wish to obtain degrees from getting them, while others said price would decrease with so many people going to college it would be available to a wider range of students.

For the moment it seems that importance would continue to increase. Many colleges are trying different things to create a better future for their students. Some universities like Arizona State or the California State system have many students and therefore try to enroll as many people as possible to  receive a degree from a four year institution. Others try to help their students be more competitive by becoming first class intuitions, such as UC Berkly, UCLA, Harvard, Yale, and our very own University of Texas at Austin. Economic and societal factors will play a huge role in shaping educations importance in the next 30 to 40 years. Only time will tell how society will define conformity in the future.