The Dynamics of the Orientation of Youth Toward Higher Education

Abstract

Sociological research on the orientation of youth toward higher education in the last decade has assumed special significance in connection with the emergence of other types of vocational education and the increasing urgency of the [national] manpower problem. Aspirations to enter higher-education institutions, as indicated in research surveys of youth, are an indicator of this orientation. The place of higher education in the life plans of youth has changed in comparison with the mid-1960s: the number of tenth-graders desiring to attend a higher-education institution today is roughly half of the level of that time. (1) Yet verbally expressed plans do not always correspond to the actual behavior of youth. "Analysis of the preference of secondary-school graduates for one or another higher-education institution and the number of graduates actually applying," writes M. Kh. Titma, "shows that they tend to abandon their plan to enter the higher school (one-third of those planning to attend a higher-education institution do not actually apply for admission) and that there are significant changes in the preference for one or another institution." (2)