Missionary service impacts percentage of high school graduates going to college

The State Board of Education has a goal to see 80 percent of high school students go on to college right after they graduate. Right now the statistic is only about 50 percent, but in some eastern Idaho school districts it’s less than 40 percent.

Eastern Idaho educators don’t like being blamed for bringing the percentage down. They say it doesn’t tell the whole story. Eastern Idaho has a high population of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which encourages it’s young people to go on missions after graduation. Young men are eligible at age 18, and young women at age 19.

While schools don’t have records of the religion of students, at Madison High School 92 percent of the students are enrolled in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints seminary program. During free periods they attend religion classes at the seminary building next door to the school. Many of them plan to go on a two year church mission right after they graduate.

“My plan is to serve a mission after high school and then after my mission maybe go on to college,” senior Michael Downs said.” “I have a testimony of Christ and I want to go and serve him.”

Statewide about 50 percent of students start college within a year of graduating from high school. At Madison High School, the figure is 38 percent.

Principal Michael Bennett says student surveys show more than 90 percent of students say they plan to go on to college, but in many cases it’s after their mission, so they are not counted in the state go-on percentages.

“The difference between the numbers being reported and what students are telling us their plans are is huge,” Bennett said.

“I don’t agree with their statistics and I don’t agree with their methodology,” Madison School District Superintendent, Geoffrey Thomas, said.

He says he’s tried to explain it to state school officials who set goals for students to enroll in college immediately after graduation.

Thomas says the state’s focus on what constitutes academic success is narrow.

“I don’t know why they feel you have to graduate and immediately enroll into a four-year university, and then graduate within four years to constitute a successful life, Thomas said. “I don’t understand it.”

Students at the seminary class next to Madison High School feel a mission will be an education in and of itself, and will make them better college students when they return.

“You go away for two years on a mission and you’re away from your parents, and and you’re living on your own, and so you’re forced in some ways to mature at a faster rate than other people might have to if they were to stay behind,” senior Kimball Allowitz said.

Recently Idaho Education News researched some statistics gathered by the National Student Clearing House. It showed that four years after high school graduation, East Idaho schools actually had more students that were in college or had graduated than the state average. It was 41 percent for east Idaho and 40 percent statewide.

The article points out that East Idaho high school graduates go on to college at a slightly higher rate than the rest of the state, but it just takes them a little longer to get there.