When is Schooling Complete? At the beginning of the twentieth century most Americans believed they had “completed” their schooling if they finished the eighth grade. Only 6 percent of young people then graduated from high school. Eighth-grade graduation was a major celebration, particularly in rural neighborhoods, with the newly recognized scholars feted and dressed in their best as the photograph of my father’s 1908 Ottertail County, Minnesota, eighth-grade class illustrates. In 1955 a ninth-grade student in my homeroom, when queried how far her father had gone in school, replied confidently, “all the way.” That meant high school graduation in the Deep Creek, Virginia, neighborhood. By the end of the twentieth century, however, that definition had changed radically. “Completing schooling” now means some college at a minimum, with about 66 percent of high school graduates now attending, and increasingly it has meant acquiring a post-graduate degree. These changing expectations for what is considered sufficient schooling have dramatically altered American views of higher education. Once thought the domain of the very few (less than 2 percent of the age group in 1900) and largely peripheral to the economy, colleges and universities occupied a very different position at the beginning of the twenty-first century. They now appeal to a mass population, and they constitute a crucial link in the economy through their research and development activities. Furthermore, unlike 1900 when few foreigners would ever have considered coming to the United States to study, they now attract both students and faculty from all over the world, including some of the most gifted and ambitious. The range of these institutions from the leading research universities, which remain among the best in the world, to “open enrollment” institutions (with no requirements for admission other than paying the tuition), which provide unparalleled access to higher education, is extraordinary. Today the academic overlap between some of the best high schools and some undergraduate institutions is considerable, with high school juniors and seniors flourishing in college classes.
Stratification in Korean Higher Education: Determinants of the College Destinations of General High School Graduates
