More college students with fewer high school grads?

This morning on my drive to work I heard an interesting feature on the radio about how this year will be the peak year for graduating high school students in the state of Minnesota with 64,000 students expected to graduate. In just three years that number is expected to fall off to 58,000.

However, colleges are still expecting just as many applications and enrollments out of that group due to a higher percentage of the kids graduating attending college. In order to achieve that higher percentage some of the Minnesota colleges are reaching out to students as young as 7th and 8th grade to get them started thinking about college.

The interesting thing I thought was that it's not really a recruitment effort... it's more to get some kids (and many who would fall into the category of less likely to attend college being from low income, first generation American or first generation college student families). They're trying to reinforce the idea that college is for everyone, you CAN attend college and it is within your reach to go.

I think that is pretty cool. That makes the job of the high school counselor much easier when helping the student figure out life after high school in that college is more of an automatic choice. (Yes, I am of the mindset that everyone should at least try college. Every college might not be for everyone but there are so many types of colleges out there that there has to be one that will appeal to each person... plus you don't know until you try!)

I knew quite a few people who always said "College isn't for me, I hated high school and I will hate college so I'm not going." Personally, I've experienced three types of colleges though work and attending them and none of them had the feel of a high school. So again, to present the idea at a young age that college is something different and that is attainable is something that I think is great that these theatres are doing!

When did you really start thinking college was an option? Have you run into the mindset of "I'm not going?"