Problems Our Fund Addresses
Due to a combination of factors, high school graduates are increasingly ill-prepared to succeed in college today. ACT, Inc. recently discovered 77% of high school graduates were academically ill-prepared for college coursework. In a different study, 64% of high school graduates were not considered proficient in reading, 83% were not proficient in mathematics. As a result, 30% of all incoming freshmen fail to make it to their sophomore year, and 50% never graduate at all. Whether these students have not been properly equipped, or are simply not motivated, most institutions are equally unprepared to support their students and address these deficits.
Our youth are generally uncommitted – uninterested in deep, meaningful relationships, detached from their communities, and unsure of their personal convictions. George Barna’s research revealed that most Christian high school graduates were philosophically ill-prepared for the classroom and therefore unable to withstand the secular ideologies that undermined their faith. His research revealed that a shocking 75% of Christian students lose their faith during their college years. Facing a steady barrage of temptations, Christian students find themselves compromising their values in ways they never intended. This lack of conviction creates a social gap and threatens the future of our communities, our churches, our families, and even our government.
As this generation reaches the workplace, employers are seeing strong indications of entitlement, individualism, and overall lack of respect. Some companies have gone as far as refusing to hire people under a certain age to avoid these characteristics. A recent study from Harvard, Carnegie, and Stanford found that 85% of the reason a student gets a job, moves ahead in a job, and ultimately keeps a job is a result of their people skills, not the job skill itself. The economic climate is working against this age group, as well. The national unemployment rate for youth hit a staggering 18.1% in July 2011, and if this generation continues to make themselves undesirable to employers, their opportunity to learn critical work ethic skills will diminish accordingly.
