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Disadvantaged Students Stay In College If They're Told Everyone Struggles (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader shares an Ars Technica report: Lower-income and minority college students often have trouble sticking with higher education. But past studies have indicated they would be less likely to drop out of school if they receive appropriate counseling once they start experiencing academic problems. A new study published in PNAS demonstrates that if students receive this kind of intervention prior to college enrollment and during their first year at college, they are more likely to avoid having academic trouble in the first place. And the counseling can be done over the Internet. The counseling involves letting students know that it is common for students to struggle with the transition to college and that this transition will get easier with time. This is known as a "lay theory intervention."
'scuse me, but calling a US college an "ocean with nothing but sharks", don't ever dare studying in Europe. Over here, nobody holds your hand. Nobody is dependent on your money, so they don't give half a shit about whether you drop out. Actually, you dropping out means less work with pesky students and more time to dedicate to research, so the sooner you drop out the better.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Is that it's hard to put your life on hold for 4 more years. You need a lot of money to do that. The kids work hard and that's the trouble. They get part time jobs that turn into full time and before long they're falling behind in their studies. Then they get blamed for being lazy... It doesn't help that a good percentage of the population is activity trying to keep birth control away from then either.
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The only advantage I remember from college was the economic advantages some kids had.
It doesn't make more economically advantaged kids smarter, and many of them squander this advantage partying, but they also don't face the soul-sucking grind of a job or the soul-sucking money problems that come with it. And the job of course takes hours away, sometimes leaving you amotivated to study or flat-out with less hours to study.
None of this means it can be done, but it does make it harder. Harder still for those occasional emotional crises that arise in college -- a couple of bad grades, social problems, etc.