Why is higher education so important?

Higher education is defined as further education after high school completion. Today’s job market reflects the difference in salary between educational levels as seen below.

A high-school diploma alone is not sufficient to access jobs that pay above average.

Education is the great equalizer, and while you may not have a university degree, don’t underestimate parental influence on your student’s life. Read the following excerpt from Parental Involvement and Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis by William H. Jeynes:

The results of the meta-analysis indicate that parental involvement is associated with higher student achievement outcomes.

These findings emerged consistently whether the outcome measures were grades, standardized test scores, or a variety of other measures, including teacher ratings.

This trend holds not only for parental involvement overall but for most components of parental involvement that were examined in the meta-analysis.

Moreover, the pattern holds not only for the overall student population but for minority students as well.

For the overall population of students, on average, the achievement scores of children with highly involved parents was higher than children with less involved parents.

This academic advantage for those parents who were highly involved in their education averaged about .5– .6 of a standard deviation for overall educational outcomes, grades, and academic achievement.

In other words, the academic achievement score distribution or range of scores for children whose parents were highly involved in their education was substantially higher than that of their counterparts whose parents were less involved

Research confirms that parent involvement does matter particularly when your son/daughter/family member decides whether or not to go to college, or when thinking about future jobs opportunities.

Upon becoming a Southwestern College student, career assessment career and counseling resources are readily available and are free.