ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a general look at the role education plays in a modern society. It considers how educational choices determine employability, job satisfaction, income, and social status. Many people continue to believe in the promise of education. As we have seen, gender, region, community size, race, social class, and cultural capital all play a role in streaming young people into postsecondary education. Location also influences students' plans for postsecondary education. Just as residence in some states makes higher education less likely, so does residence in rural instead of urban areas. The amount and kinds of education people want are patterned by gender, place of residence, and socioeconomic status and to some degree by other factors such as ethnicity and race. Many people predicted that college enrollments in the United States would decline because as the baby-boom generation aged, the proportion of college-age people in the population would decrease.
