Can the region’s Class of 2011 rise above all the challenges?

Two common threads woven throughout The Vindicator’s extensive coverage of high school graduations have been perseverance and the ability to rise above great odds.

The thousands of students we saluted in that coverage and their 3.3 million high-school graduate peers across the United States will need heavy doses of that same dogged drive and resilience to battle sky-high levels of adversity they face as they prepare to enter the most common post-high school paths: the job market, the military or higher education.

Each path presents countless challenges.

As our coverage of commencement ceremonies in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys over the past three weeks clearly illustrates, many of our home-grown grads are indeed ready for those challenges.

Take the story of 19-year-old Anthony Hartwig of South Range High School who used his personal battle with cerebral palsy to inspire his family and his classmates. Take the story of Katelyn Brady, who graduated Sunday from Girard High School. She maintained strong grades while working 30 hours weekly as a waitress and taking care of her five brothers and sisters. Or take the story of Cametreus Clardy whose father was murdered when he was 3 and whose family recently lost its home. “I refused to be one of those people who said, ‘I could have been,’ Clardy, a proud East High grad, said.

Perhaps the greatest collective example of the power of education to turn lives around comes from the Mahoning County High School, most of whose graduates are students who had been expelled for disciplinary or behavioral transgressions. The school on Youngstown’s South Side graduated 15 students last week, including Devontae Heard.

“I made a stupid decision, but [later] made a negative into a positive,” said graduate Devontae Heard, who’s planning to attend Youngstown State University to study graphic design and be a member of the YSU Penguins basketball team. Mahoning County High School is to be applauded for providing students an alternative to dropping out, a path that too often leads to a street culture of guns, drugs, violence and prison.

CONSIDER THE CHALLENGES

Despite these and countless other success stories among our crop of fresh high school alumni, make no mistake about it: Challenges abound for all.

For those hoping to join the work force directly out of high school, the numbers are stacked strongly against them. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the jobless rate for for high school graduates under age 25 who are not enrolled in college is 22.5 percent, compared with 9.3 percent for college graduates of the same age. Young blacks and Hispanics suffer disproportionately. The unemployment rate for black high school graduates under age 25 and not enrolled in school is 31.8 percent, compared with 22.8 percent for Hispanic high school graduates and 20.3 percent for white high school graduates.

For those hoping to enter the military, danger looms large.

Nationally, recruitment is slowing dramatically. Active U.S. Army enlistments dropped from 80,400 in 2007 to 74,500 in 2010. Army documents show the goal in 2011 is 64,000 recruits.

The weight of 52,000 U.S. deaths and injuries from America’s ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan understandably deters some from choosing that path.

For those seeking to enter higher education at a public or private university or in the growing crop of community colleges, frustration reigns supreme as well. Fresh high school graduates enter college facing the onus of mounting costs. Over the past decade, tuition costs have increased nearly 200 percent at some U.S. colleges and universities.

That trend is not slowing. Youngstown State, still one of the most affordable colleges in Ohio, is poised to raise tuition another 3.5 percent for the 2011-12 academic year. The thoughts of working to earn that college degree in exchange for an average $23,000 debt cause pause for many youths.

LOOKING AT BRIGHT SIDE

Nonetheless students can look to data from the U.S. Census Bureau for optimism. The average American with an advanced degree earns $83,144 annually, those with a bachelor’s degree earn an average of $58,613 in 2008, while those with a high school diploma earn a scant $31,283.

Clearly, though, these are not the best of times for the Mahoning Valley’s Class of 2011. With the U.S. economy still reeling from the Great Recession, with the fears of life-losing sacrifice in the American military and with the costs of higher education catapulting, the launching pad from high school to adult citizenship is as tenuous as ever.

But we’re confident that Class of 2011 students such as Anthony, Katelyn, Cametreus and others like them will marshal the same fortitude, inner strength and perseverance they demonstrated in high school to overcome the many adversities and challenges that await.