Research Cont...
Preparation and Transition Research
Today 70% of students walk away from the church in transition and 26% drop out of college before they end of their freshmen year of college. Seeking to understand the forces causing these outcomes we interviewed on camera 150 college students who had recently graduated from high school. In this time we found two areas that lead to these outcomes: Culture Shock and Preparation.
Culture Shock
Many of the students we interviewed encountered a level of stress and loneliness that was significant, causing them to want to fit in or escape at any cost. This level of stress causes culture shock, a physiological response to these forces that opens one to bonding with a foreign culture in a short period of time. Today many mission agencies use culture shock to force long-term foreign missionaries to cast off the assumptions of their culture so that they will bond with their new culture. In addition it is this phenomenon that enables the US military to take kids from society at large and bond them to an authoritarian culture in just a few weeks of basic training. By helping our soon to be graduates see and understand the forces, changes and loneliness ahead of time, we can help them avoid the gut response to bond to the first thing that invites them in when they leave home.
Preparation
In talking with college students many felt unprepared spiritually as well as practically for leaving home. As we help students in transition, it is important to be holistic in our approach. Dealing with only the spiritual issues leaves them open to a number of practical pitfalls that create stress and demands upon their time that prevent them from getting involved in a church or college ministry. The top three factors that lead to the college drop put rate are:
#1 Changes in the social environment.
This includes freedom, party scene, roommates and dorm life that can overwhelm students and prevent them from becoming involved in a ministry. These factors often decrease productivity related to their job or academics resulting in failure spiritually, as well as practically. Practical failure at this age is often hard to recover from and typically raises more questions about the nature of God.
# 2 Changes in the academic protocol
Students had a highly structured day in high school and then enter a day with more free time before, between and following classes. This free time combined with freedom often resulted both in an inability to set sound priorities for ones self and to manage tthem effectively. The inability to use their time effectively lead to increased stress and a need to forgo all else to try and dig out or fail. Stress is the number force leading to culture shock.
#3 Managing Money
Students frequently find themselves with many choices when they leave home. There is a constant freedom and opportunity to go out and eat, to buy what you want as well as easy access to credit cards. Many succumb to the freedom and temptation to have what they want now because they are focused on their short-term desire rather then the long-term goals. Many spend themselves into debt and out of college.
All of our graduates want to succeed. By helping them come to a realization of the changes and challenges ahead we can also help them understand how important it is to have friends that are believers who are also making good decisions that will lead to success in the long-term. Far too many do not have this perspective and fall prey to the freedom and fun not only spiritually, but socially, academically and financially.
YTN has a number of resources designed to help prepare graduates: including a live annual web cast event for parents and their teens to attend together. Learn more about our resources.
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