A recent Chronicle of Higher Education article reports on a study of the relationship between students' cognitive-academic performance during college and their success in the transition to post-college life. The main findings, as summarized by the Chronicle, are as follows:

Graduates who scored in the bottom 20 percent on a test of critical thinking fared far more poorly on measures of employment and lifestyle when compared with those who scored in the top 20 percent. The test was the Collegiate Learning Assessment, or CLA, which was developed by the Council for Aid to Education.

The students scoring in the bottom quintile were three times more likely than those in the top quintile to be unemployed (9.6 percent compared with 3.1 percent), twice as likely to be living at home with parents (35 percent compared with 18 percent), and significantly more likely to have amassed credit-card debt (51 percent compared with 37 percent).

These findings do seem pretty compelling, especially the differences in unemployment rates. One caution, however, is that whenever the top and bottom 20% on some measure (in this case, the CLA) are compared on later attainments, we learn nothing about the 60% in the middle. The technical report of the study presents comparisons between three groups: top 20% on the CLA, middle 60%, and bottom 20%. (I would have preferred to see all five of the quintiles compared; i.e., the highest, second-highest, middle, second-lowest, and lowest 20%).

As seen in the technical report, on some outcomes the middle 60% on the CLA fared similarly to the top 20% (e.g., on likelihood of living at home after college and of being married or cohabiting), whereas on other measures the middle 60% more closely resembled the bottom 20% (e.g., on credit-card debt). (See Figures 3 and 6 of the technical report.)

I've written previously about the CLA and critical thinking, in another outlet, for readers seeking additional background.

With the Iowa Caucuses taking place tonight to kick-off the Republican presidential nomination fight, TIME Magazine has an article on how one of the candidates, Ron Paul, seems to be doing well with younger voters. As much (or more) a Libertarian as a Republican, Paul conveys his views with statements such as the following one quoted in the TIME article:

“What you want to do with your life, what your religious beliefs are, what your intellectual pursuits are, what your private habits are — that’s part of freedom.”

This one brief quote is amazingly rich in Emerging Adulthood themes. As Jeffrey Arnett details here, three aspects of EA are identity exploration, possibilities, and self-focus.  Religious beliefs, intellectual pursuits, etc., are of course part of identity exploration and development. What one wants to do with one's life suggests (to me at least) the idea of open possibilities -- if one wants to pursue advanced education, travel, work in a certain profession, start a family, etc., one potentially can do so. And ultimately, as Paul implies, all these decisions are up to the individual, similar to Arnett's notion of self-focus.

LATE-NIGHT UPDATE:  Paul indeed dominated the Republican voting among younger participants, according to a poll of randomly selected caucus attendees.  Paul took an estimated 48% of the 17-29 year-old vote, with the next highest percentage from that age group (23%) going to Rick Santorum. When the poll results were broken out further into 17-24 and 25-29 year-old subgroups, Paul did comparably well in each, garnering 50% and 45% of the vote, respectively. (As an aside, it initially seemed odd to me that 17-year-olds were listed in the results; I looked into the matter and, as I suspected, 17-year-olds can participate as long as they will be 18 by the November general election.)

The New York Times recently had an article about how young women were increasingly opting to obtain additional education rather than join the labor force. One of the charts accompanying the story showed that among 16-24 year-old females, the percentage in school has exceeded that in the labor force during the last few years.

The Washington Post has been reporting this year on how the nation's capital city is becoming a hub for people in the emerging adulthood age range (here and here). According to the second linked article:

About 190,000 of the city’s 600,000 residents are between the ages of 20 and 34, a 23 percent jump. The 35,000 additional people in that age group fueled the city’s entire population gain between 2000 and 2010.

To see how unique Washington, DC really is, I did a little extra research. The U.S. Census Bureau creates what are known as "population pyramids," in which horizontal bars are stacked from the bottom (young ages) to the top (old ages). The wider a given bar, the bigger the population for that age range. The pyramid for D.C. has a pronounced widening for the ages 20-35 relative to other ages, a pattern not seen nearly as much in states such as California, New York, Texas, or even Washington, home of trendy Seattle.

Given how expensive the DC area is, it seems counterintuitive that it would attract young adults. The main reason cited for the capital's drawing power is the seemingly steady availability of government-related jobs. That, and the "hip" nightlife and other amenities. The idea of a reinforcing cycle of amenities (restaurants, bars, shops, parks) attracting bright young adults, and vice versa, reminds me of Richard Florida's writings on cities and the "creative class."

An area of speculation raised by the Post articles is whether Washington, DC's young adults who, for example, are currently single, or married and childless, will remain in the city after starting families or move to the suburbs surrounding DC (or elsewhere).

A couple of news articles have come out recently about how emerging adults are dealing with the protracted economic gloom of the the past few years. One article, passed on to me by Tim Oblad, a graduate student in our department at Texas Tech, is entitled "Census Numbers Show Recession Taking Toll on Young Adults" (link). The article notes that:

In record-setting numbers, young adults struggling to find work are shunning long-distance moves to live with Mom and Dad, delaying marriage and buying fewer homes, often raising kids out of wedlock. They suffer from the highest unemployment since World War II and risk living in poverty more than others -- nearly 1 in 5.

Many emerging adults appear, in many ways, to be putting their lives on hold until the economy improves. The article suggests, however, that when job prospects get brighter, individuals who might by then be in their mid-20s "will have to compete with new graduates for entry-level career positions."

The article quotes Mark Mather of the Population Reference Bureau, which studies demographic and societal trends, and Mather makes an important point. The past few years' flagging economy didn't initiate the trends of young people delaying marriage, moving back home with their parents, and so forth, but the recession seems to be "accelerating" these pheonomena.

The other article, brought to the attention of the American Association for Public Opinion Research e-mail discussion group (in which I participate) by Leo Simonetta, is entitled "2010 Data Show Surge in Poor Young Families" (link). The two articles share some of the same sources.

Most notably, the second article reports that, "More than one in three young families with children were living in poverty last year," with "young family" in this context apparently defined as the parents being younger than 30.

For decades, the U.S. economy has been rewarding those with greater education and/or punishing those with less education, depending on one's perspective. What's scary is how quickly this dynamic has exerted itself during the current recession. Again, quoting from the second article, "The number of men in their 20s with only a high school degree who worked full time fell by 22 percent from 2007 to 2010, while those with a college degree dropped by just 1 percent, according to census data."

Pretty gloomy stuff! On a separate but related note, Barbara Ray, a fellow writer on young-adulthood issues, has been working on a project called "Generation R" (for Recession).

The National Center for Family and Marriage Research has a new report out, entitled "On the Road to Adulthood: Leaving the Parental Home." The report focuses on the 18-24 year-old age group and three mutually exclusive statuses: launched, boomerang (returned home after moving out), and never left. Differences by gender, race/ethnicity, and education are explored.

The American Youth Policy Forum has online videos available from roundtable sessions at a June conference on the transition to adulthood.