Importance of Education

Looking at the youth of today, I can firmly say I feel very optimistic about us. Specifically, I am optimistic in terms of education. Youth today have a positive outlook on higher education and are generally inclined to go to university, as found in this study: “The major findings show that Canadian youth continue to aim high. Almost all want to go beyond high school, and most want to attend university”. Compared to previous generations, youth today have a lower dropout rate and a higher rate of continuing on to higher education, as stated in this article. Education is something that is valued by a lot of youth today, and about 90% of youth in Canada actually agree or strongly agree with the statement “I am smart enough to do well in college”, as found here. This shows that not only do youth realize the importance of education, but actually feel confident that success is a very high possibility. Universities have a lot more young people enrolled today than in previous generations; in fact we see here that the number of full-time students in university has more than doubled since 1980, as well as the rate of part-time students, which is up 16%. Generally, due to the positive outlook that many youth today have on education, I feel very optimistic.

Finally, in this image we see that the drop out rate of students continues to dramatically decrease, which proves that youth are valuing education more and more. I think education makes a massive difference in people’s lives and the fact that many of us youth today have a positive outlook on it makes me very optimistic about our futures.