It’s crunch time. This year’s high school seniors have two weeks left to decide where they are going to college.
If last year is any guide, nearly 70 percent of the class of 2015 will be enrolled in college this fall.
On Thursday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its survey of 2014 high school graduates and high school dropouts. Last year, 3.4 million young people left high school in one way or another. Of that group, nearly 2.9 million graduated and another 575,000 dropped out.
The statistics showed nearly 2 million students, or 68 percent of the class of 2014, went right from high school to college, with 92 percent in a full-time program and 64 percent in a four-year college.
New college students were slightly more likely to be female — 72.6 percent of women headed off to further schooling, while 64 percent of men did so.
Once there, about one third of them worked — 33 percent of men and 32 percent of women. However, more women were trying to get work than men — 78,000 unemployed college women were job hunting, but only 29,000 college men were looking for work.
According to the BLS data, Asian and black high school graduates were more likely to go on to higher education, 86 percent and 71 percent respectively, than white or Hispanic students, who went to college at rates of 67 and 65 percent.
Kids who dropped out of high school had a harder time finding a job. Overall the unemployment rate for recent high school graduates was 21.2 percent, while for dropouts the rate was 30.3 percent.
High school dropouts were overwhelmingly white (80.5 percent), with slightly more men (53.7 percent) than women.
However, high school dropouts had a higher labor force participation rate, at 41.2 percent, than those enrolled in college. Just 37.9 of them were working or looking for work while attending college.
Ann Belser: abelser@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1699.
First Published: April 17, 2015, 4:00 a.m.