Not Quite Adults: Why 20-Somethings Are Choosing a Slower Path to Adulthood, and Why It’s Good for Everyone

by Settersten, Richard; Ray, Barbara E.

  One of the major projects of the Network involved conducting comprehensive, in-person interviews with nearly five hundred young adults from five distinct American sites. Facts and quantitative trends are important, but it is the lives of the young people that make those facts come alive. Without the hard work of the investigators at those sites, and of the young people who were interviewed, this book would not have been possible. The lives of these young people have given our stories a voice. We are truly in debt to the principal investigators and research teams at those five sites: Jacque Eccles, who directed the Detroit, Michigan, site; Pat Carr and Maria Kefalas, for the community in rural Iowa; Jeylan Mortimer and Teresa Swartz, for St. Paul, Minnesota; Rubén Rumbaut, for San Diego, California; and Mary Waters, for New York City.

  As we wrote the book, we also interviewed many young people to better understand particular issues. For purposes of anonymity, their names cannot be mentioned here. But to these young adults, along with the other five-hundred who were interviewed as part of the Network’s efforts: Thank you for the time you gave, and for the intimate details of your lives that you revealed. In sharing your stories with readers, we hope we will help enrich social conversation and political debate about young people and the future of our society. Your stories are ultimately about all of us.

  We thank the Spencer Foundation for awarding Rick a visiting research fellowship in Chicago. Their generous support of an office for Rick and apartment for his family allowed us to work together for three months. Special thanks at Spencer are due to Liz Carrick, vice president; Susan Dauber, program director; and Michael McPherson, president. What an amazing gift of time, place, and memories that will always be treasured.

  We are also grateful to Molly Trauten, a doctoral student at Oregon State University, for her research assistance. Molly was helpful on so many fronts—in searching literature, crunching data, analyzing interview transcripts, processing ideas, and reviewing chapters.

  We also have many people to thank in the publishing world. Early in the journey came along our agent Joelle Delbourgo, of Joelle Delbourgo Associates. Joelle’s long tenure in the business, and her razor-sharp questions and candid comments, helped strengthen the prospectus and early drafts of a few chapters. Her guidance has been invaluable throughout the entire process. At Random House, it was our deep pleasure to have had an opportunity to work with Toni Burbank, former vice president and executive editor, before she retired. The book benefited from the insights of editorial consultant John Paine. It also benefited from the wisdom of Philip Rappaport, former senior editor; Beth Rashbaum, senior editor; and finally Angela Polidoro, assistant editor at Bantam Dell. We also thank Laura Jorstad for her superb copyediting.

  Each of us also has those we’d like to personally thank. From Rick—I am so very thankful to Dan Dowhower and our children, Maya Grace and Mario Nelson, for their love and laughter, and for their understanding when the unpredictable rhythms of writing have strained our lives and diverted my attention. When I open my eyes in the morning and put my head down at night, I am reminded of what truly matters in my life: you. I am also grateful to my parents, Richard and Diann, for teaching me this lesson, and for teaching me so many of life’s most precious lessons, by living in ways that leave me inspired. I am also thankful for many dear friends, students, colleagues, and mentors who have listened with great interest and supported with great strength and patience. Thank you all for your kindness and generosity.

  From Barbara—I could not have written this book without the constant support and silly puns of the love of my life, Rex. My dear friends Maria Kefalas and Pat Carr deserve a medal (or a lifetime supply of Guinness) for reading drafts and offering sage advice throughout the process. Having just written their own book, they knew firsthand the quiet panic of putting word after word on the page and hoping it makes sense to someone. I’m truly lucky to be surrounded by a fantastic group of friends, who all have my deep gratitude for listening to me complain and fret for more than a year. Cheryl, Bun, Brande, Lucy … thanks. Your endurance is remarkable. My sister Sally had my back the entire way, as did everyone in my family. You can’t grow up hoping to be a writer without parents who believe in you. And last but not least, my favorite barista, Mike, without whom I truly would not have made it.

  —Rick Settersten and Barbara Ray

  Notes

  Introduction

  1. In writing this book, we have relied principally on research conducted or commissioned by the MacArthur Research Network, but not exclusively so. Despite the wide scope of the Network’s activities, we inevitably discovered topics that were not addressed (or not sufficiently addressed in ways that suited our unique themes and storylines). In these situations, we conducted primary research of our own or went beyond the Network to tell or augment the story, selecting what we judged to be the most fitting, compelling, and scientifically sound research. We have also not incorporated everything the Network has produced. For the individual cases discussed in this book, we used two strategies to conduct our own analyses of the Network’s five hundred in-person interviews, which will be discussed momentarily. One strategy was to identify cases that fit the evidence from large, quantitative analyses and then use them to bring those findings to life. The second strategy, especially when the evidence wasn’t as clear or strong, involved us wading through cases across sites, working up themes, and integrating them into our story lines. We also conducted additional interviews to gain fresh insights and updates into the changing experiences of young people (such as in the economic downturn) or to probe more deeply particular topics of interest.

  2. We are truly indebted to the principal investigators and research teams at those five sites: Jacque Eccles, who directed the Detroit, Michigan, site; Pat Carr and Maria Kefalas, for the community in rural Iowa; Jeylan Mortimer and Teresa Swartz, for Minneapolis–St. Paul, Minnesota; Rubén Rumbaut, for San Diego, California; and Mary Waters, for New York City.

  3. Of course, in discussing larger categories of young people, such as “swimmers” and “treaders,” we run the risk of overgeneralization. That is, we must recognize that young people in these categories are neither uniform as a group nor uniform as individuals. There are differences among swimmers and treaders, with some members of these groups functioning better than others. Similarly, individual swimmers or treaders may not swim or tread in all domains of life—and indeed, like most of us, they probably do better in some areas than others. Still, there are young people at the extremes—some doing very well across most domains and some doing very poorly—and for the remainder, it is the relative balance or main effect we care about.

  4. Harry Holzer, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, and Greg Duncan, “The Economic Costs of Childhood Poverty in the United States.” Discussion paper 1327-07 (Evanston, IL: Institute for Research on Poverty, Northwestern University, 2007).

  Chapter 1

  1. Kim Clark, “Solving the College Crisis,” U.S. News & World Report, September 2009.

  2. Gates Foundation, “Diplomas Count” (Seattle: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2008). These figures are calculated differently from the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2008. The Gates method results in higher estimates. The U.S. Department of Education lists high school dropout rates among people sixteen to twenty-four years old (not enrolled in school and who have not earned a high school diploma or equivalent credential, such as a GED) as 9.3 percent overall in 2006, and 5.8 percent, 10.7 percent, and 22.1 percent for whites, blacks, and Hispanics, respectively. For data on graduation rates within six years, see Sara Goldrick-Rab and Josipa Roksa, “A Federal Agenda for Promoting Student Success and Degree Completion” (Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, 2008). The methods of calculating dropout rates vary across studies, and studies therefore often arrive at slightly different figures. For data on the share of young adults with bachelor’s degrees, see Rubén Rumbaut and Golnaz Komai, “Young Adults in the United States: A Mid-Decade Pr
ofile” (Philadelphia: MacArthur Network on Transitions to Adulthood, September 2007).

  3. Rumbaut and Komai, “Young Adults in the United States.”

  4. US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2001 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (Washington, DC: NCES, 2002), Table II.11.

  5. “Urban Schools Are Aiming Higher than Diploma,” New York Times, January 17, 2008, A24.

  6. Melanie Guldi, et al., “Family Background and the Transition to Adulthood,” in The Price of Independence: The Economics of Early Adulthood, edited by Sheldon Danziger and Cecilia Rouse (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007).

  7. National Association for College Admissions Counseling, “2009 State of College Admissions” (Washington, DC: NACAC, 2009).

  8. Alexandra Robbins, The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids (New York: Hyperion, 2006).

  9. Approximately 30 percent of African American students and 43 percent of Latino students feel that their parents could have done more in dealing with officials at their college or in helping to select college courses. In contrast, fewer than 17 percent of white students, who more often came from better-off families, shared these sentiments. Cooperative Institutional Research Program, “The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 2007” (Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Center, UCLA, 2007).

  10. Thomas Brock and Allen LeBlanc, Promoting Student Success in Community College and Beyond (New York: MDRC, 2005).

  11. Goldrick-Rab and Roksa, “A Federal Agenda for Promoting Student Success.”

  12. Thomas Bailey, Dong Wook Jeong, and Sung-Woo Cho, “Referral, Enrollment, and Completion in Developmental Education Sequences in Community Colleges.” CCRC Working Paper No. 15 (New York: Community College Research Center, Columbia University, December 2008).

  13. Tom Brock, et al., “Opening Doors” (New York: MDRC, June 2008). See also William Doyle, “Community College Transfers and College Graduation: Whose Choices Matter Most?” (New York: Carnegie Foundation, 2006).

  14. Ibid.

  15. Dropouts are those who are not enrolled in school and who have not earned a high school diploma or equivalent credential, such as a GED. See the National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics: 2007 (Washington, DC: NCES, 2008). Some dropouts will, of course, go on to receive a GED. See also note 2.

  16. Susan Jekielek and Brett Brown, “The Transition to Adulthood: Characteristics of Young Adults Ages 18–24 in America” (Baltimore: Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2005), available at www.prb.org/pdf05/TransitionToAdulthood.pdf.

  17. Similar questions are now popping up in public and educational debates. See, for instance Charles Murray, Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality (New York: Crown Forum, 2008), and Rona Wilensky, “High Schools Have Got It Bad for Higher Ed—And That Ain’t Good.” Phi Delta Kappan 89, no. 4 (December 2007), pp. 248–259.

  Chapter 2

  1. For luck versus work, see Paola Giuliano and Antonio Spilimbergo, “Growing Up in a Recession: Beliefs and the Macroeconomy.” NBER Working Paper No. 15321 (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2009). For earnings differences, see Till von Wachter, et al., “Long-Term Earnings Losses Due to Mass Layoffs During the 1982 Recession.” NBER Working Paper (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2009).

  2. Jesse Rothstein and Cecilia Rouse, “Constrained After College: Student Loans and Early Career Occupational Choices.” NBER Working Paper (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2007).

  3. Ngina Chiteji, “To Have and to Hold,” in The Price of Independence: The Economics of Early Adulthood, edited by Sheldon Danziger and Cecilia Rouse (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007), p. 246. The mean among young adult households ages twenty-five through thirty-four was $7,065. Young adult households are those whose heads are ages twenty-five through thirty-four, which, at the low end, is a minimum of three years past the traditional age of college graduation.

  4. National Center for Education Statistics, Condition of Education (Washington, DC: NCES, 2000).

  5. Rothstein and Rouse, “Constrained After College.”

  6. In 1975, men with a college degree earned about $8,300 more (in 2002 dollars) on the job than a man with a high school degree. For women, the difference was $7,800. By 2002, that gap had widened to $17,000 for men and $16,000 for women—a little more than doubling in value. Sheldon Danziger, “Earnings by Education for Young Workers, 1975 and 2002.” Data Brief No. 17 (Philadelphia: Network on Transitions to Adulthood, 2004). Likewise, college graduates from more affluent backgrounds enjoy greater returns on college than do lower-income students, while first-generation college graduates have significantly lower returns than students whose parents have a college degree. See S. L. Thomas and L. Zhang, “Post-Baccalaureate Wage Growth Within Four Years of Graduation: The Effects of College Major, Quality and Performance.” Paper presented to 2001 Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Richmond, VA.

  7. New research by William Bowen, Matthew Chingos, and Michael McPherson, however, suggests there may be a wrinkle to consider with respect to the Network’s findings: When extremely capable students are severely “under-matched” to the institutions they end up attending—for example, when a student who could have gotten into an Ivy League school goes to a community college—they are far less likely to finish their degrees. See Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009). The Network’s findings, in contrast, focus more on the margins—say, in choosing to attend a college or university one notch down, or in choosing a cheaper option from among institutions in approximately the same tier (hence, “The Mercedes Versus the Corolla”).

  8. Research indicates most students and families tend to overestimate the prices of college, underestimate the availability of student financial aid, and underestimate the value of college in the long run. This misperception, says a recent study, “plays an alarmingly large role in post-secondary decision making for many families, [but] especially among lower income groups.” Canadian Council on Learning, “Are Low-Income Averse to Financing Post-Secondary Education by Borrowing?” Question Scans 06 (2006), p. 3. See also A. Usher, “A Little Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing: How Perceptions of Costs and Benefits Affect Access to Education.” Canadian Education Report series (Toronto: Educational Policy Institute, September 30, 2005); L. E. Gladieux and W. S. Swail, “Is College Affordable? Sorting Perception and Reality,” College Board Review 189–190 (2000), p. 55.

  9. Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), “Promise Lost: College-Qualified Students Who Don’t Enroll in College,” available at www.ihep.org/assets/files/publications/m-r/PromiseLostCollegeQualrpt.pdf.

  10. Brian K. Bucks, Arthur B. Kennickell, Traci L. Mach, and Kevin B. Moore, “Changes in Family Finances from 2004 to 2007: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances,” Federal Reserve Bulletin 95 (2009).

  11. Danziger, “Earnings by Education for Young Workers, 1975 and 2002.”

  12. Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and Sylvia Allegretto, The State of Working America (Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2008).

  13. Edwin Park, Paul N. Van de Water, and Matt Broaddus, “Private Health Coverage Declined, Became Less Secure in 2008: New Census Data Underscore Importance of Comprehensive Health Reform” (Washington, DC: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, September 2008).

  14. Mishel, et al., State of Working America.

  15. Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Education Trust, Employer Health Benefits 2009 Annual Survey (Washington, DC: Kaiser Family Foundation, 2009).

  16. Helen Levy, “Health Insurance and the Transition to Adulthood,” in The Price of Independence, edited by Danziger and Rouse. Levy finds that job instability and part-time work are the main reasons for lack of insurance coverage. Other reasons, such as pricing, also help to explai
n the gap, but none as dominantly as job instability and job-hopping. Young adults may find that the price of health insurance is not worth it, given that they are relatively healthy at this stage in their lives. Because insurance pools risk, the most healthy support the least healthy, and health insurance companies may not be pricing their product in a way that accurately reflects the “actuarial” risk of young adults—and thus young people view the cost as too high.

  17. Interestingly, the dip in coverage for men is exacerbated by the decline in public coverage such as Medicaid, which for men ends at age eighteen. Low-income women with children are allowed to remain on Medicaid slightly longer, although not indefinitely. Levy, “Health Insurance and the Transition to Adulthood.”

  18. Kaiser Family Foundation, “Uninsured Workers in America.” Kaiser Commission on Key Facts (New York: Kaiser Family Foundation, July 2004).

  19. Chiteji, “To Have and to Hold.”

  20. In 2007, only 15 percent of all young adults had total debt burdens that consumed more than 40 percent of their income—considered onerous. This was the same or slightly lower than their parents, but higher than their grandparents. Brian K. Bucks, Arthur B. Kennickell, Traci L. Mach, and Kevin B. Moore, “Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2004 to 2007: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances,” Federal Reserve Bulletin 95 (February 2009), pp. A1–A55.