Turns Out That Under-25s Are Smarter and Safer Than Ever

Turns Out That Under-25s Are Smarter and Safer Than Ever

Young adults today might not be able to find a job, but they’re better behaved than they have been in the past 20 years. Less badass or more mature? You decide

Authors: Elizabeth Kulze and Matthew Conlen

Posted: 07/29/14 07:12 EDT

Deep Web Reporting By: Matan Gilat

“It’s an old axiom that every generation is more rebellious than the one that came before it. Ask any member of Generation X (or “the Olds,” as we call them) and they might rip out the tired cliché that kids today—what with their sexting gadgets and twerking pop stars—are cause for moral panic.

The reality is that compared with the previous generation, a relatively large proportion of young people are unemployed, saddled with loan debt and still living with their parents. Millennials, it might seem, despite being better educated than their forebearers, are failing at life.

But not so fast. According to data Vocativ culled from sources ranging from the Economic Policy Institute to the U.S. Department of Justice to the Centers for Disease Control, young adults in the U.S. are actually far more straight-laced than they were 20 years ago. When it comes to general shenanigans—including alcohol and drug use, teen pregnancy, violent crimes and more—rates have declined across the board over the past 20 years, except when it comes to smoking weed (which has risen 38 percent).

We took 20 years of data, from 1993 to 2013, taking the midpoint (2003) as a baseline set at zero for all categories. Red lines on our charts denote that things got worse, while the blue lines indicate that things improved.

Click through the various tabs below to see how 15- to 25-year-olds have been keeping their act together over the past two decades.

Overview

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THE DEEP DIVE

Shenanigans

This should be a comfort to any parents who worry about their kids: According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, today’s young adults are consuming less alcohol and illicit drugs (cocaine, MDMA, heroin, etc.) than ever before. This excludes marijuana use, which has shot up, in line with America’s liberalized stance on weed, including the recent wave of legalization in a handful of states. Also, more kids are graduating from high school and fewer are committing violent crimes or getting knocked up than they were 20 years ago. So maybe weed isn’t so much a bad thing?

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Unemployment

Unemployment figures tell a different, depressing story. According to a 2014 report from the Economic Policy Institute, unemployment for college graduates is 8.5 percent, while the rate for all 15- to 24-year-olds is a whopping 16.5 percent—more than twice the national average.

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Education

Regardless of the shitty job prospects for Americans under 25, young people today are staying in school longer than Gen Xers. Relative to 1993, more high school seniors are enrolling in higher education according to the report by the Economic Policy Institute, while the total undergraduate and graduate school enrollment continues to climb.

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Sources:

Drug and Alcohol Use: The National Institute on Drug Abuse; Teen Pregnancy:Center for Disease Control and Prevention; Abortion Rate: The Guttmacher Institute; High School Dropout Rate: National Center for Education Statistics; Youth Crime Rate: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; Youth Unemployment Rate: The Economic Policy Institute; Higher Education Enrollment: The Economic Policy Institute

Students React To The Closure Of A Giant For-Profit College

Students React To The Closure Of A Giant For-Profit College

Education should never be for-profit.

Oregon Tuition Plan: The Beaver State Breaks the Dam Of Student Debt

• Dina Pérez
• 2 weeks ago

 

“Congress can spend all the time it wants being apathetic and letting student loan rates double but on the other side of the country, one state is thinking of a more creative way to run the financial aspect of public higher education. For Oregon, loans will be a thing of the past and state legislatures are throwing around the “f” word: FREE.

A bill to make tuition at the state’s public universities free passed unanimously and is expected to be officially signed at some point this month by Governor John Kitzhaber. Coincidentally, the bill was passed on the very same Monday that federal student loan interest rates doubled from 3.4 to 6.8% and functioned as a snippet of hope. There is a chance for change, as students to have options outside of the federal loan system to fund their educations, but it is up to individual states to take action. 

The concept of making public institutions of higher education tuition and loan-free is now being called the “Pay-It-Forward” program and it functions just as the name entails. Of course, everyone knows that almost nothing comes without a price and anything that truly is free may ultimately turn out to be more costly, monetarily or otherwise. However, the bill will still hold students responsible for contributing to their education, but collecting these compensations will be done in a manner that is mindful of the student’s financial situation after joining the workforce.

Graduates of a four-year public college or university will be expected to pay 3% of their adjusted growth income over a 24-year span, and graduates of a two-year degree will be required to contribute 1.5%. Those who fail to graduate will still be expected to contribute but fees will be pro-rated. 

“This is going to happen because students demand change; I believe that firmly,” Steve Hughes, state director of the Oregon Working Families Party, said. “The conditions are just absolutely ripe for this. We’ve heard so many stories of student debt that are just beyond belief.”

This plan is not about actually providing free education, as the money evidently would have to come from somewhere, but the goal behind it is to keep students from automatically feeling the dread of student loans and having the fear that their incomes may possibly be inadequate to pay the borrowed funds back. No person should feel discouraged from attending college due to fears that he or she will be unable to come up with the money to pay for it and it seems that this plan, if instated, could help on these fronts.

Above all, Oregon’s move to do something about the hefty cost of higher education especially given the rise in student debt is a reminder that change is not limited to the federal government, and there should be a larger push towards getting state legislatures to implement the changes that its constituents demand. 

Picture Credit: Web Pro News“