Alignment of Educational and Occupational Expectations Influences on Young Adult Educational Attainment, Income, and Underemployment*

Abstract

Objective. Educational and occupational ambitions are on the rise for adolescents in the United States and there is a national push for more postsecondary education. However, most young adults do not hold bachelor's degrees and many jobs do not require them. The objectives of this study were to focus on the need for aligned expectations and the longitudinal effect on educational attainment, personal income, and underemployment. Methods. The methods used the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) to examine how aligned expectations in 12th grade predict educational attainment, income, and underemployment at age 26. Results. Results suggest aligned expectations in adolescence are predictive of educational attainment. Contrary to authors' hypotheses, aligned expectations do not influence personal income or underemployment. Gender analyses revealed differences in the importance of aligned expectations. Conclusion. In conclusion, the alignment process during high school will be important for future research focused on postsecondary educational goals.The United States is currently facing the need for young adults to complete postsecondary education. The president even issued a call to increase the college completion rate from 39 to 60 percent by the year 2020 (President Barack Obama, 2009). This call was justified as graduating from college is important for a variety of personal health and wage outcomes. However, the "college for all" mentality focuses on preparing all high school students for a four-year university program directly after high school graduation (Rosenbaum, Stephan, and Rosenbaum, 2010). By the year 2018, only 12 percent of jobs will require an associate's degree, 23 percent of jobs will require a bachelor's degree, and 10 percent of jobs will require a master's or professional degree (Carnevale, Smith, and Strohl, 2010). Hence, if the nation meets the goal of increasing postsecondary degree completion rates to 60 percent, then 15 percent of the workforce will be overqualified for jobs. This rationale suggests a mismatch between educational attainment goals and training required for occupations. While there is high potential for labor market mismatch, this study focuses on the problem of focusing solely on educational attainment outcomes. As a society, should we be promoting "college degrees for all," regardless of future job requirements, or should we focus on aligning educational and occupational goals?

Immigrant socioeconomic mobility in the United States: Mechanisms of inequality and the role of ethnic capital

“…Still, scholars have also found consistently high educational attainment of second‐generation Asian‐Americans (Byun & Park, ; Hsin and Xie ; Lee & Zhou, ; Liu & Yu, ; Ochoa, ) and have tried to understand what contributes to these patterns. Specifically, researchers showed that second‐generation Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, and South Indians report the highest rates of advanced degree expectations, as early as eighth grade (Kao, ), which is an important early predictor of later educational attainment (Feliciano, ; Karlson, ; Schmitt‐Wilson & Faas, ; Sewell, Haller, & Portes, ). Later research also showed high levels of attainment and years of schooling completed by Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, and South Indians (Foner, ; Haller et al, ).…”

Parental Influence on Student Educational Expectations: Results from the 2012 Qatar Education Study

“…Another line of research has examined more closely the connections between student educational expectations and their level of education (Chang, Min, Shi, Kenny, & Loyalka, 2016;Englund, Luckner, Whaley, & Egeland, 2004;Trusty, 2002;Trusty, Plata, & Salazar, 2003). Students' educational expectations are shown to increase as they progress in their education (Entwisle, Alexander, & Olson, 2005;Goyette, 2008;Lowman & Elliott, 2010;Schmitt-Wilson & Faas, 2016). Thus, students in higher stages of education have been found to report they expect to earn a higher degree (Jacob & Wilder, 2010;McDaniel, 2009;Reynolds & Burge, 2008;Turley, Santos, & Ceja, 2007).…”

“…Educational aspirations and expectations are measures commonly used in the literature to capture educational goals and ambitions (Schmitt-Wilson & Faas, 2016). Although the direction of much research in education has highlighted associations between both educational aspirations and educational expectations (Beal & Crockett, 2010;Boxer et al, 2011), the two concepts have historically been treated as if they were inseparable.…”

Co-Development of Student Agency Components and Its Impact on Educational Attainment—Theoretical and Methodological Considerations

“…Such patterns can be extracted from the data to describe prevalent group differences in the cotrajectories of constructs (e.g., Archambault et al, 2010). Alternatively, they are constructed by classifying combinations of individual scores of agency components in terms of how well they fit together (e.g., Denissen et al, 2007;Sabates et al, 2011;Schmitt-Wilson & Faas, 2016). Based on such classifications researchers are in the position of analyzing the trajectory of fit/misfit across time.…”

“…An example is the specification of cotrajectory group membership as outcome of individual and social background factors (Archambault et al, 2010). Another one refers to a score of alignment specified as predictor of socioeconomic outcomes (Sabates et al, 2011;Schmitt-Wilson & Faas, 2016). Finally, multigroup analyses are used to examine potential diversity of patterns of interrelations between variables in a population (see e.g., Verboom, Sijtsema, Verhulst, Penninx, & Ormel, 2014).…”