Predictors and consequences of tertiary education: A nine-year follow-up of academically capable school leavers

Summary. South Australian adults of average age 24.6 years, who had been recruited into a longitudinal study of the school to work transition in 1980 while they were in the final years of secondary school, were followed up in 1989. In 1980 all had been rated by their school teachers as definitely capable of tertiary study; in 1989 they were current tertiary students (N=24), or past tertiary students (N=95), or had never been tertiary students (N=50). Those who had not undertaken tertiary education had initially had more external locus of control and fathers with lower social status than those from the other two groups. Regardless of initial social status, past students had higher present social status than did the never students. Current students were distinguished from the other two groups by greater psychological distress even after controlling for their greater financial hardship.