The name is absent

entry, 34 percent eventually graduate whereas only 8 percent of low socioeconomic
status students who delayed graduated. These findings led the Department of Education
researchers to conclude:” knowing that a decision to delay entry .. .can mean the chances
of getting a bachelor’s degree are five times lower than they would be if the student
started on track should result in better decisions by high school seniors.” (US Department
of Education 1989:29).¹

The data from the Department of Education suggests caution before
recommending a year off before college. An additional reason for institutions to be
concerned about students delaying entry is that there is a growing use of institutional
graduation rates as a measure of accountability and a tendency to blame colleges for the
failure of students to graduate or to graduate in a timely manner (Adelman 1999).

The college wage premium rose to an unprecedented level in the 1980’s (Bound
and Johnson, 1989; Murphy and Welch, 1993; Brewer, Eide, and Ehrenberg, 1999).
College graduates have twice the earnings and two and one- half times the wealth of high
school graduates.(Diaz-Gimenz, Quadrini, and Rios-Rull, 1997). Thus, to the extent that
delaying college attendance after graduating high school lowers the amount of post-

¹A similar conclusion can be drawn from the recent analysis of the High School and Beyond/Sophomore

1982 cohort. Fully 51 percent of those who did not delay entry to college earned a bachelor’s degree while
only 20 percent of those who delayed seven to 18 months and ten percent of those who delayed more than
18 months earned a bachelor’s degree (Adelman 1999:45).

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