Yes You Can

YES YOU CANFinish High School and go to College is a book about possibility. At its best it seeks to motivate, inspire and empower young people to achieve their goal of going to college. This book will be useful and helpful to any student, but it will be especially useful to those students who have what it takes to finish high school and go to college but who may be experiencing doubts and lack of motivation.The first chapter is titled Why you must go to college. It makes a strong argument that any young person wishing to retain the slimmest hope of financial security or even a decent standard of living must get some form of education or training beyond high school. The book opens with a quote from Dorothy J. Hulst which says in part there are efforts and results and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result . . . I truly believe that dreams can come true and goals can be achieved. In fact, I know that any young person can finish high school and go to college, if that is what they truly desire to do and if they are willing to make some sacrifices and do the work. I know that this is possible because there are those of us who faced significant life challenges and who had similar fears and yet we persisted and succeeded. With the help of family, friends and many caring adults we finished high school, enrolled in college and managed to graduate. It can happen for young people today as well. They really dont know what they are capable of until they commit themselves to a goal and begin working towards its fulfillment. In the United States, the richest country in the world, over one million students drop out of high school each and every year! Retired General Colin Powell, founder of Americas Promise Alliance said this state of affairs is more than a problem, its a catastrophe. This book is, in part, my small attempt to help to change the odds of students dropping out of high school by getting them to think about the consequences of their actions. Today we know that "the number one predictor of a young persons future success is whether they graduate from high school. And for those who go on to college they will earn a million dollars more than the average high school graduate during their lifetime. A college education is even more important today as we see major problems in the U.S. economy. In 2008, over 700,000 Americans lost their jobs. Many of these jobs went to workers in other countries like India and China. More job losses are projected for 2009. In recent months, major banks and other financial institutions have failed or had to be rescued by the Federal Government. Across the country many American families have lost their homes to foreclosure. I share these facts to underscore the point that young people and adults simply must have some marketable skills to have any chance of getting and keeping a job and making a decent wage in this rapidly changing economy. So, it is vitally important that teens give themselves a chance in life by finishing high school and by going to college. They can do it and this book will help.