When Merrimack High School students participated in an annual oratory contest last spring, they chose a topic they were all interested in researching and discussing.
Their choice: The rising costs of higher education.
The decision surprised Superintendent Marge Chiafery.
“To know that this group of students was so concerned about this is striking,” she said.
The more Chiafery talks with high school students, the more she finds they’re worried about their ability to graduate from college without huge amounts of debt.
And as students grow more realistic about where they can afford to go to college – if they can afford it at all – so, too, must schools become more realistic about how they define a successful postsecondary path, according to Chiafery and other local school officials.
For years, the state Department of Education has tracked the number of high school graduates heading to two- and four-year institutions and highlighted improvements in these rates.
Schools with high rates of students going to college tout these numbers as badges of success.
Publications such as U.S. News & World Report and Newsweek have used the measure as a key component when naming their top schools in the country.
And for some students, such as recent University of New Hampshire graduate Joshua Marks, 22, a Salem native, this focus amounted to added pressure.
Even though he always wanted to go to college, he said his generation is pushed too hard to get a degree.
“If I hadn’t wanted to go, I would have felt pressured,” he said.
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
↧