Members of the Class of 2012 at Southern Vance and Northern Vance high schools earned a total of almost $2 million in scholarship funding to further their education at the college level.
Of the 176 graduates of Southern Vance, 46 earned scholarships totaling $1,396,400. Among the 193 graduates from Northern Vance, there were 35 students earning a total of $386,660 in scholarship funding for college.
Their high school academic achievements and scholarship awards will serve them well in a world where statistics increasingly show that young adults with only a high school diploma face very limited prospects for employment.
In an in depth study, The New York Times recently reported that only one in six high school graduates are working full time, most are still living with their parents and 73 percent think they need more education now to make them more employable. The study was actually conducted by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.
The report also shows that since the nation’s financial crisis began about three years ago only 16 percent of high school graduates have full-time jobs. Twenty-two percent of the graduates are working part time and most of them want full-time work. High school graduates also stressed in the study that while they feel they would benefit from a college education, financial barriers in many cases are keeping them from enrolling in college.
Over half of the high school graduates included in the study are pessimistic about their financial success. Fifty-six percent believe they will be less financially successful than their parents and only 14 percent think they will be more successful than their parents. Most of the high school graduates also aren’t confident they will find a job that leads to a career in the next few years, according to the report.