Like mother's degree, like daughter's degree?

The research institute Statistik Austria recently published the results of a study on the educational level of Austrians. They found out that the kind of degree someone gets is greatly influenced by the kind of degree their parents got. According to the study, only a third of the Austrian citizens aged 15 to 34 manage to get a higher degree than their parents did. So, almost 70 percent of this group achieve the same level of education as their parents or even a lower one. However, compared to the results of the same study ten years ago, the numbers are improving. The number of young girls in particular who are more highly educated than their mothers has increased within the last decade. 

About 40 percent of the mothers among the 15 to 34 year olds had only finished compulsory school, whereas nowadays it's about 15 percent. These results are especially interesting if you take a look at those who graduate from university. It is most likely for a youngster to finish university if the parents did so as well. 41 percent of kids who have parents with a college degree get one themselves. But if your parents only finished compulsory school, you only have a 5 percent chance of finishing university.

So, do our parents decide what life we will have and what degree we will achieve? Obviously, I was one of the lucky ones. My mother finished compulsory school and my father did vocational training. So my chances of getting a university degree were pretty damn low but still I managed to get one. But was it really only luck? I think that it was only due to my parents that I got to finish university. If it weren't for them I would have stopped in the middle of secondary school and might have ended up in a job I didn’t like a bit. Instead, they encouraged me to go on with studying. They have made every dream that I've ever had possible, and even when I announced that I wanted to pursue a second degree, they didn't let me down but instead supported me every step of the way.

However, at times the Statistik Austria study gives the impression that not having a university degree is a bad thing. But this is not necessarily the case. Other studies show that the higher the educational degree, the lower the chance of unemployment. And we all know that those who finish university are very likely to earn significantly more money than people who only finish compulsory school. Yet, we must not forget that many people choose not to attend higher education simply because the job they want to do does not require secondary education.

Nevertheless, others don’t choose to remain without a degree voluntarily. Since people who only finish compulsory school usually don’t earn a lot of money, they may have a no choice other than to get a job. Some may try to finance their studies themselves but many others resign themselves to their fate and miss out on a great opportunity to experience student life.

The Austrian government should encourage the people to attend higher education and support those who decide to do so. People should not become victims of the last generation’s financial and economic problems but instead should be able to live the life they want to and achieve their desired level of education, may it be from university or from vocational training.