RESCHOOLING FOR CAREERS: A SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE EDUCATION AND CAREER ATTAINMENT OF OLDER RE-ENTRY WOMEN STUDENTS, 1970-1975

To the question "Does going back to school pay off for older women who want careers or advancement?"--this study provides a "Yes, but..." response. Outcomes in occupational status and satisfaction are better than the financial returns. Some "high risk tracks" are identified. The study is based on reports by 542 women who had received small scholarships between 1970 and 1974 when they enrolled in schools throughout the United States. Then aged 25-to-over-50, they had enrolled in a variety of fields and levels from vocational training to doctoral programs, but nearly half were in bachelor's programs. Data sources include the women's scholarship application files and follow-up questionnaires mailed in December 1975, completed by 86 percent of those reached. The combination of a survey approach to data for the whole sample and a closer examination of 25 case histories of a subsample affords a "bifocal" view which moves back and forth between the women's objective circumstances and their interpretations of their situations. Research questions center on the degree completion progress of those who had expected to finish their programs by 1975, and the subsequent pay, employment status and perceptions of program completers and drop-outs in two kinds of programs. The analysis compares the careers of women enrolled in career-specific "professional" fields with those in "academic" or liberal arts and education fields. Certain literature supports the proposition that schooling in professional fields follows the human capital model of schooling as an investment with commensurate career outcome. Schooling in academic fields may better fit the "screening" concept and its implications. Therefore, the outcome of investment in professional fields was expected, at this study's outset, to be more independent of the graduates' personal and social characteristics--and thus a "better investment" for those re-entry students with status disadvantages--than schooling in academic fields would be. However, findings indicate more complex and subtle patterns of outcome. Two distinct models describe progress toward completion in two kinds of programs: In professional fields and in graduate-level academic programs, progress depends on what the students need (credentials, especially in programs congruent with job-market entry points), while in bachelor's-level academic programs, progress depends on what students have (resources, commitment). Completion depends far less on age, marital and parenting statuses than on schooling features (field, degree level, kind of school, full/part-time study). More full-time (74 percent) than part-time students (47 percent) completed their programs. By 1975, three-fourths of all completers had found employment in job-levels appropriate to their new educational levels. The hypothesized superiority of professional fields holds for pay levels (18 percent differential at bachelor's level) and rates of return on investment, but not for appropriate-level career chances. Instead, the data indicate two success tracks: the professional-entry track; and the academic-field advancement track for those with relevant experience. Several high risk tracks--combinations of programs and purposes resulting in low rates of appropriate employment--are noted. Moreover, these re-entry students are sorted into high success or high risk tracks in a patterned way: more women who have greater starting advantages select success tracks, while more women with disadvantages are in the high risk tracks. Because of this sorting process, schooling is apparently least profitable for those who can least afford the loss. On another level, careers depend on the final stage of commitment to career development, negotiated at the individual/household level. When the opportunity picture is poor, as it is in the high risk academic-entry track, family and commitment factors become more salient to women's career-success chances.