government

 With only hours to go until a federal government shutdown occurs, many are wondering what will happen to services on which they rely. As current college students or as parents of current college students the following information is extremely important, especially if the shutdown becomes protracted.

 Last week, we posted College without Completion -- Post #1, which discussed National Center for Educational Statistics's published statistics on cohort graduation rates. We continue the College without Completion thread with this post.(image by flickr user ben.chaney)In the last College without Completion post, we shared that, according to NCES, 42.7% of students did not get a bachelor's degree from the college at which they began within 6 years (Source). In this post, we look at the effects of leaving college without a degree. There are multiple ways in which a student and his or her immediate family might be affected by a student's decision to leave college.A student's potential earnings, as well as a student's quality of life, can be greatly diminished by the lack of a degree.Students who have some college but no degree face a higher unemployment rate and sub-median weekly pay check (Source).Students with a bachelor's degree or a higher degree report a lower level of poverty, a slightly higher job satisfaction rate, a lower obesity rate and children that are better prepared for school (Source).