Children of the 1980s, You are so Not Like Today’s Kids

Last month, the National Center for Education Statistics released a new report detailing numerous changes in the demographic and behavioral patterns of America’s youth over the last 30 years. “America’s Youth: Transitions to Adulthood,” published by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, finds many differences between the youth -- described in the study as those between the ages of 14-24 -- of today, and their peers from 10, 20 and 30 years ago. The report states that while there are approximately 1 million more youth in the United States than three decades ago, the overall population percentage of the nation’s youth shrunk from 20 percent in 1980 to just 15 percent in 2010. The report,  Susan Aud, Angelina KewalRamani and Lauren Froehlich, also notes that the youth of today are more likely to be enrolled in school than the youth of 30 years ago, with 52 percent of the nation’s 20- and 21-year-olds currently enrolled in college, compared to only 31 percent in 1980. According to the report, the number of young adults whose highest education level was a high school degree dropped from 46 percent to 29 percent over the last 30 years.