Of the 3.2 million youth who graduated from high school from October 2007 to October 2008, 2.2 million (68.6 percent) were attending college in October 2008. College enrollment rates were 71.5 percent for young women and 65.9 percent for young men.
The labor force participation rate (the proportion of the population with a job or looking for work) was higher for young women enrolled in college (46.1 percent) than for their male counterparts (36.0 percent).
Among recent high school graduates enrolled in college in October 2008, 93.2 percent were full-time students. The labor force participation rate was 38.5 percent for full-time students and 75.9 percent for part-time students.
About 6 in 10 recent high school graduates who were enrolled in college attended 4-year institutions. Of these students, 31.0 percent participated in the labor force, while 55.9 percent of recent graduates enrolled in 2-year colleges were in the labor force.
Recent high school graduates not enrolled in college in the fall of 2008 were more likely than enrolled graduates to be in the labor force
(76.4 versus 41.1 percent). The unemployment rate for high school graduates not enrolled in college was 26.7 percent, compared with 14.9 percent for graduates enrolled in college (in either 2- or 4-year institutions.)
From October 2007 to October 2008, 400,000 persons between the ages of 16 and 24 dropped out of high school. The labor force participation rate for dropouts (48.4 percent) was lower than for recent high school graduates not enrolled in college (76.4 percent). The jobless rate for recent high school dropouts was 39.5 percent.
Youth Enrolled in School
In October 2008, 56.8 percent of the nation's 16- to 24-year-olds, or 21.3 million young people, were either enrolled in high school (9.7 million) or in college (11.7 million).
College students were more likely to participate in the labor force than high school students (54.1 percent compared with 27.5 percent). Among college students, those attending full time had lower participation rates than part-time students. The rate of labor force participation was higher for female college students (56.6 percent) than for their male counterparts (51.2 percent).
The unemployment rate for high school students, at 21.1 percent in October 2008, was higher than for college students (8.0 percent). The jobless rate for white high school students was 19.7 percent, which was lower than for black high school students (30.5 percent) and for Hispanic high school students (34.8 percent). Among college students, the white unemployment rate of 7.4 percent was below that for black students (14.3 percent) and Hispanic students (12.0 percent).
Out-of-School Youth
In October 2008, 16.2 million persons age 16 to 24 were not enrolled in school. Of these out-of-school youth, 79.9 percent were in the labor
force. Young men who were not in school were more likely to be working or looking for work (85.4 percent) than young women not in school (73.9 percent). Labor force participation rates for out-of-school men and women were highest for college graduates and lowest for those with less than a high school diploma.
The unemployment rate for out-of-school youth age 16 to 24 was 14.2 percent in October 2008. Among the educational attainment categories, unemployment rates for youth not in school were highest for those without a high school diploma - 26.3 percent for young men and 25.0 percent for young women. In contrast, the unemployment rates for young male and female college graduates were 8.7 and 6.6 percent, respectively. Black out-of-school youth had an unemployment rate of 23.7 percent in October 2008, compared with 12.4 percent for whites, 15.1 percent for Hispanics, and 7.3 percent for Asians.
