Overview

The National Education Longitudinal Studies (NELS) program of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) was established to study the educational, vocational, and personal development of young people beginning with their elementary or high school years, and following them over time as they begin to take on adult roles and responsibilities. Thus far, the NELS program consists of three major studies: the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 (NLS-72), High School and Beyond (HS&B), and the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988(NELS:88).

NLS-72 followed the 1972 cohort of high school seniors through 1986, or fourteen years after most of this cohort completed high school. The HS&B survey included two cohorts: the 1980 senior class, and the 1980 sophomore class. Both cohorts were surveyed every two years through 1986, and the 1980 sophomore class was also surveyed again in 1992. NELS:88 started with the cohort of students who were in the eighth grade in 1988, and these students have been surveyed every two years since that time.

This descriptive report describes the educational attainment, employment outcomes, and family formation of the 1980 sophomore class in 1992, ten years after most of the students in that cohort graduated from high school. The report begins with an essay that explores in some detail the relationships between characteristics of the 1980 sophomores, their patterns of enrollment in postsecondary education, their postsecondary expectations, and their patterns of educational attainment in 1992. The compendium of tables that follows this essay provides summary data on the family status, employment outcomes, voting behavior, and activities of the 1980 sophomore class in 1992, as well as additional information about their educational experiences not included in the essay. Each of the four sections of the compendium is prefaced by a series of bullets that highlight the findings of the section. This format was chosen because it illustrates both the level of detail that can be achieved in an analysis that uses the HS&B Fourth Follow-up data as well as the broad scope of the information in these files.