From High School Jocks to College Grads
Title IX gets a boost.
For her master’s thesis at Brigham Young, Kelly P. Troutman looked at 5,000 high school girls in the National Education Longitudinal Study and found that girls who play interscholastic high school sports are 41 percent more likely to graduate from college than their counterparts. The athletes had the advantage of “social capital,” a network invested in their success, mentor coaches and parents in the stands sharing college information.
I’m interested to know how many of those women had sports and athletic scholarships, which would increase their allegiance to staying in college. I imagine that male athletes might have lower graduation rates due to the call of pro sports.
From the June issue of the journal Youth & Society .
college
sports