Explaining to parents difficult for dropouts
By BETSY WRIGHT
Mom cries and Dad moans, "where have we failed?" Or Dad cries and Mom moans "where have we failed?" Another college dropout has just done the hardest thing in the dropping out process—broken the news to his parents.
It may come after an unsuccessful test (or the seventh or eighth of such failures), after hitting a jag in the "identity crisis," after seeing the mounting expenses of a college education, after fighting with a girl or boyfriend, or for a million other personal reasons.
The student may be a National Merit Scholar or a lifetime "C" student. Whatever the case, at some time or another in the career of a college student, he may contemplate dropping out. Some forget it, others make the fateful decision to leave school.
ALTHOUGH the dropout is an elusive character to track down, general estimates show that about six of every ten students who enter college will drop out before they graduate.
These figures place KU right in the norm. James K. Hitt, registrar, estimates that (1) one third of all freshmen will not return the next year (2) one fourth of all sophomores will not return, and (3) one fifth of all juniors will not return the next year. This would leave approximately 4 students in each group of 10 who go all the way through and graduate.
The statistics, however, are not nearly as cut-and-dried as they might seem. Dropoutism seems to be one of the most talked-about, and least-understood, phenomena of the Western education system. It used to be that a person would choose a college, stay at the same school for four years and graduate. If he left, it usually meant he was leaving for good.
Today there is no easy pattern.
The modern, mobile student changes colleges regularly, switches majors a couple of times (thereby almost eliminating the four year tradition of undergraduate work), or frequently takes a year or two off to work or fulfill his military obligations.
FEW COLLEGES or universities have the facilities or personnel to keep up with this ever-fluctuating enrollment, and accurate national statistics are therefore impossible.
Nor do the colleges have any official calculations on why students drop out. Some students give reasons for leaving, but others prefer to offer no explanations.
There are, however, a few brave scholars who attempt an educated guess on the subject. Nevitt Sanford, in "The American College" estimates that transfer students account for 20 per cent of those listed as dropouts. But who can predict how many of the remaining 80 per cent will return at some time in their lifetime to finish their college work?
JOHN KEATS, author of "The Sheepskin Phychosis," says that academic failure is the main reason for student withdrawal from state universities with non-restrictive entrance policies. He concludes that many of these students did not have the necessary capacity for college work to begin with.
But Keats does not have an explanation for the 20 to 40 per cent dropout rate at the nation's highly selective schools such as Harvard, Yale and Stanford. These students obviously had the ability, so why did they find it necessary to leave?
A senior editor of "Changing Times," Sidney Sulkin, cites a long-range University of Illinois study which found that over 70 per cent of all students who enter state-supported institutions earn a degree sometime within a 10-year period. He also asserts that of those who drop out of college, more than half will return and graduate.
ONE FACT that all dropout experts seem to agree upon, however, is that the rate is no higher today than it was 40 or 50 years ago. When the parents of today's college students were in school, dropping out was often an understandable economic necessity. Life was not over for a dropout, unless he wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer.
Today's demand for "the degree for the degree's sake," however, has changed all that. People notice when a person drops out these days—his parents notice, his friends notice and his employers notice. And no matter what his reasons, whether he left for academic necessity or whether he left to write the novel of the century, his withdrawal is likely to be regarded by all who know and love him, as the ultimate of possible disasters.
KU apathy—
Continued from page 1 said Mrs. Kay Wells, Kansas City, Mo., junior.
There are many reasons why a person is apathetic, Mrs. Wells said. "A person gets trapped in life and regardless of what he wants to do, there doesn't seem anything that can be done about it.
"APATHY begins to settle in with the passing of the years, people begin to lose hope, because there isn't any solution other than just living with it. Actually a person may seem very apathetic, but beneath the indifferent surface, there could be a lot of anger, a lot of frustration, but again, what's the use—so apathy," she said.
As far as apathy at KU, Mrs. Wells said, "The only, kind of apathy I have seen up here is pseudo-apathy. Most of the students read very much, and they find all sorts of answers for the problems of society. And they may have a professor who does everything to get them really interested in the actual problems, but generally they read the books and then when they go on to the outside, they have to face real life, and become a part of the rat race, and the books were just nice theories."
Besides life being "a raw deal and having to live with the reality of it," Mrs. Wells said "Apathy is really just a substitute for anger, nobody cares to live with 'the bomb,' or Vietnam, but the only thing a person can do is worry about it all the time or try to forget about it.
"Then there is another kind of apathy, a person may look around and see other people with money, or good looks, or a dashing personality, whatever, and this can cause apathy and anger, but apathy is better than anger. I don't think it is really anything too unusual, it's just a natural human condition," she added.
Thomas Reily, assistant professor of psychology, said, "Apathy is a general reduction of all kinds of activities, drives, motives, a withdrawal from the world, or from reality, a complete withdrawal."
Because a person is indifferent to political affairs does not mean that person is apathetic, psychologically speaking, Reilly said, "even a bookworm who does nothing but spend all his time in the library is not apathetic in the strict sense."
ALTHOUGH apathy is generally thought of on very broad terms, as the "bomb" or Vietnam, a clinical psychologist will think of apathy in different terms.
ONE cause of apathy, Reilly said, "is that a person may be constantly rejected in his social actions. And the person may keep
Then there could be a psychological reason that would require a medical solution. Some people, because of a gland disorder, would be slow in various ways which would cause apathy.
on trying, and for some reason will still meet failure. Then it gets worse and worse. The factors that cause such rejection are many and go back to the person's childhood, the way his parents raised him and on and on."
Another form of what might be called apathy, with the use of hindsight as a guide, he said, "would be where a person or a group of people would be confronted with a crisis, and yet they seemed indifferent to it. Of course this is putting yourself in a position of circumstances beyond your own experience.
"An obvious example of apathy that everyone has come in contact with is the state of mourning. This is a universal experience, which could become serious for an individual," said Reilly.
"But projecting yourself in such a position as the Jewish people were in Germany when Hitler came to power, it would seem what might be called a form of apathy would be based on the thought that things wouldn't get so bad. Even when things got really bad, there would still be hope."
KU cops—
Continued from page 1
students coming on-campus. They'll crowd into any place that's quiet so they can study," he said.
Most on-campus parking violations occur between 7:30-9 p.m. according to Kampschroeder. This is the time when "the students come back to the campus for night classes."
FRATERNITIES and sororities are not on the regular patrol routes of the campus cops. Since there are no houses actually on the campus, all fraternities and sororities are in the jurisdiction of the Lawrence police.
"Of course, if there is trouble at one of the houses and one of our units is real close, or if all the Lawrence police are busy, or if they request our assistance, then we will respond to fraternity houses," he said.
What's it like to be a campus cop? Are the students hard to manage? Are they "bad?"
"IT SEEMS to me there is a lot less vandalism and more emphasis on schooling than there used to be. I'm really surprised at how quiet things are. Seems things get a little quieter each year."
"I would say, in my opinion, the students do very well. I'm real proud of this group. Of course, some of them always want to let off steam, but they don't do too much of it on state property."
"We try to be fair with the students. We give them some leeway on violations," Kampschroeder commented.
Fortunes to merge
NEW YORK —(UPI)— The Rockefeller family and Cleveland financier Cyrus S. Eaton Jr, plan to merge their fortunes and skill in a major investment of U.S. capital behind the Iron Curtain.
The disclosure of the multi-million dollar investment program
Computers to be focus of lectures
Computer center operation and education will be the topic for discussion Thursday and Friday when Dr. Earl Schwpep, associate professor of computer science at the University of Maryland will be on campus.
His visit involves meetings with various faculty groups and a speech on "The Structure of Computer Languages" at 3:30 p.m. Thursday in 303 Summerfield.
He is sponsored by the Visiting Scientist program of the Association for Computing Machinery.
Daily Kansan Monday, January 16, 1967
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