Examining “on-time” bachelor’s degree completion through the life course perspective: Evidence from the NLSY97

• In Event: 4266 - Section on Aging and the Life Course Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: 11. Transitions to Adulthood

Abstract

This working paper explores the distal and proximal effects of social determinants and life course events on the timing of educational attainment among youth transitioning to adulthood. Although the positive relationship between social determinants and educational attainment has now been established, few studies have investigated the distinct relationship or effect of life course events on the same. We extend the line of research by Roksa and Velez (2012) to address this knowledge gap by examining time-to-enrollment, stop-out, and time-to-degree as distinct yet sequenced milestones in the college-going pathway. Using data from the 1997 cohort of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, we model the rate at which high school graduates enrolled, stopped out, and/or graduated with a bachelor’s degree over a 14-year observation period. We also derive the partial effects of time-varying life events (union formation, family formation, full-time employment) on the average likelihood of each milestone. We find clear evidence for socioeconomic gradients that were simultaneously positive for the enrollment and graduation milestones and negative for the timing of those milestones. Results also show that life course events differed in prevalence by the ordinal position of each milestone, had almost universally negative effects on education outcomes, and were complexly gendered and racialized. These findings support the evidence in the higher education literature for structural nature of socioeconomic disadvantage and suggest that there is role incompatibility between higher education and life transitions. However, our findings also appear inconsistent with expectations of an extended transition to adulthood—at least as it pertains to the timing and duration of the college-going pathway.

Authors

• Serge Atherwood, University of Texas at San Antonio

• Gabriela Sanchez Soto, University of Houston