Part of it is arbitrary.
Another part is related to childhood development. The human creature tends to cross certain thresholds at certain ages. Kids across cultures learn to walk, talk, tie shoes, etc at about the same age.
18 is about the age a person is ready to leave the nest and live independently. Of course, every 16 thinks they are ready.
So it is possible different societies stumbled into the same development timeline when it comes schooling the same way they all have the same timeline for potty training, puberty rituals, or military expectations.
Well, I guess the UK is a good example, but you still need to be around 18 to go to college. It seems to be mostly an American thing though, German students also stop studying at 16 if they don't go to university. But they both send kids to higher education at 18, despite the lack of American influence in their education system
It's true. Most people know more than their parents by 14, and then get even smarter through their teens. Until about 19 or 20, then usually their parents suddenly start becoming less stupid.
I often talk about the need to re-evaluate adolescence and adulthood. It shifts over time and across cultures.
The average 18 year old in the US is not ready to go away for college. A 22yo is not ready for adult responsibilities.
It’s been shifting a lot over the past 10 years (that I’ve noticed as a college prof). Part of it is what this gen is going through!
Part of it is parenting. I’m a parent of a GenZ teen and his upbringing was very very different from my GenX/Xennial latchkey experience. For better or for worse.
I don’t mean to discourage discussion or debate :) This is just my perspective having closely taught and advised college students for the past two decades, both grads and undergrads. I’m basing this on thousands of 18-25yos.
I’m not trying to disparage this age (I love my students!), but instead argue that we need to offer more supportive social structures instead of pushing them out of the nest underprepared. . It’s Others will have differing opinions based on culture, environment, etc.
I also think 30s are far, far closer to what 20s used to be- in terms of stage of life, finances, even looks.
Well, as an educator myself, we need to look at the root causes of why students are being infantilized and combat it. People at that age need to be working jobs, having sexual relationships, and a sense of purpose to be fulfilled.
Prepare the child for the road. NOT the road for the child.
Parenting changes over time. It’s sociocultural and historical. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it necessarily.
My teen is less equipped to be independent as I was at his age. He’s also much more communicative, self-assured, and able to navigate relationships. A large part of this is the care and intention I put into my parenting, which is shared by a lot of other GenX parents.
Yeah, but life itself doesn’t change. They will be faced with very hard challenges and choices in the world (especially at this point in life), and only by facing adversity, can they rise to meet it. Young adults are not children unless they are consistently being taught that they are.
But life does change. It always has.
Look at the career outlook for GenZ vs say GenX, for example. My career trajectory is basically nonexistent anymore. Look at how younger folks are delaying marriage, childbearing, and home ownership. These are all interrelated.
With a delay in these typical “adult” activities and a change in how careers are defined, etc., why wouldn’t there also be a shift in how we parent and educate?
Because delaying those big “life steps” creates stunted, unhappy adults. Because physically and mentally they WILL be adults (if not emotionally). There is also a reason why Gen Z is suffering from more mental issues than many other generations.
I see it every day in my profession. The kids are NOT all right. It’s obvious that a lot of this traces back to social media and screen use. By obstructing normal life steps, like getting and maintaining a job, for example, they won’t have the social tools to be successful. Not having real, face-to-face relationships is extremely important for overall quality and longevity of life.
My students reading and mathematics scores are so low that we’re having to completely adjust our curriculum which will only make things harder for them later. Most of them are on some kind of medication, have a behavioral plan, or IEP. They have no social skills with other kids leading to lots of altercations.
So what we are doing right now is not working. Perhaps we should start treating young people more like how it used to be. Nothing helps growing up like having grown up responsibilities.
Same thing happened in the US during the 1918 pandemic, though. The socio-emotional, educational, and career outcomes of an entire generational cohort were negatively impacted. Of course we are seeing this again. A pandemic will tend to do that 🤷🏽♀️
There is little evidence that delaying life steps leads to negative outcomes. Child labor laws, laws restricting marriage age, laws that keep kids in school all demonstrate this.
In addition, research demonstrates that parents who wait to have children tend to have higher education and income and demonstrate more consistent and warmer parenting styles-and this predicts more positive childhood outcomes. It’s really difficult to make a positive argument for marriage and parenthood at 18 (or even 25) these days…
We used to celebrate the onset of physical puberty across cultures as a sign of adulthood-this coming with real adulthood responsibilities.
But would you say that a quinceañera or bar mitzvah should mean the same thing today?
The later you make it, the more expensive it is for taxpayers. That's why it's not later than 18 in the U.S. How it got to be as late as 18 here, is a more interesting question. My grandfather, born in the 1890s, didn't go beyond "primary" school, and I suppose very few girls did, so I suppose that back in those days most kids didn't go to high school, mostly the upper middle class boys, and so it wasn't that expensive for the government to fund, and it had important political support from the upper middle class. I'm not sure of that, just a supposition.
Think about it historically. It used to be younger - 13 to 16. But progressives argued against sending people of that age into factories, marriage, and/or war. So, it was moved up to 18. Why not older? Because the powerful still want their young cannon fodder.
That is sad. I ref high school sports and youth leagues. One of the problems is finding ref's for the youth leagues. High school age ref's could ref the lower age leagues very well , but the younger aged refs had to have their parents sign the contracts to ref.
I grew up in Idaho and I could drive at age 14 (daylight only). I couldn't vote until I was 21 but I could shoot a rifle in the military at 17-18. Now voting is 14 and driving is 16. But drinking is back to 21.
Like many issues dealing with public schools, cost has a lot to do with it. There has been talk of public funded pre-school and early child care/education, some want the public schools to take on the task. School people say no they are already trying to do too much with too little resources.
Add to this the fuzzy idea that at 18 a person is a "legal" adult, except for all those exceptions. Mandating a person to stay in high school for more time would be a legal problem.
Colleges would not like it. The would love 17 to be the grad rate for high school. They always want more people to fleece.
Universal public education. The law says it has to provide free education for kids. 18 tends to be the age of legal adulthood. Hence when you start paying for school. Going to college at 18 is because it’s hard to get a good paying job without a degree. So why not get that degree sooner
The line had to be drawn SOMEWHERE. So an age where the majority of people were finished growing and developing physically seemed like a good age to cut off school and go to the workforce. It has been different ages at different times. So it just got drawn where the prevailing cultures would count that as "good enough."
The US generally has a 13 year school program (some 12). The youngest members of classes can graduate at 17, and states can age students out as late as 26 (Texas) though it's generally 21-22.
The person we can partially blame (in the US) is Horace Mann, a reformer in the mid 1900s who advocated for schools to split into three groups (elementary, middle, and secondary) and out of the single room school-house model. Secondary school systems became more prevalent as industrialization reduced the required work force and older children were being edged out of manual labor by men and women with dependents to provide for.
Prior to this, we have to also acknowledge labor reform movements that whittled down harsh working conditions. Maximum work hours for women and children were 56 hours a week in the early 1800s, and were slowly whittled down. Factories were facing laws requiring them to still teach their child employees reading, writing, and arithmetic. New England started setting laws limiting employment of children younger than 9 (and in some places, younger than 14) and setting daily hours limits at 10-12 hours. Child welfare groups found increasing issues with child vagrancy and began pushing for child support.
Eventually, increasing labor power had a major impact. It was a huge problem that capitalists could hire children at $2 a week while grown men expected $6 a week, and so long as children could cheaply fill in the gaps, labor had a hard time leveraging their power to improve wages and working conditions.
Long story short: rather than being bored at school, [children were in situations like the ones in these photographs](https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/07/child-labor-in-america-100-years-ago/397478/) unless they were well off.
I'd offer that while Mann gets credit for a bunch of stuff but 13 years isn't really one of them. He was more focused on grammar school - children leaving after 7 or 8 years. High school came about well after he was dead. If you're interested, we get [this question](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12kow43/how_and_when_did_we_settle_on_18_as_the_beginning/) a fair amount over on /r/AskHistorians.
It’s mostly timed to match human development.
By five most kids can function independently on the basics, like going to the bathroom, talking and eating lunch. So they start primary school.
Around 10/11 kids are have generally learned to read and write. They are also starting to hit puberty pretty hard. So we dump them all in a high school.
By 18 kids are generally fully physically developed. They are physically capable of reproduction and are probably having sex. At 18 kids can generally function safely in society with not adult supervision. They can cook and drive and work and otherwise fend for themselves. So we let them out of high school.
As someone who works at a community college, we could easily have high performing students start college classes earlier, but other students need to learn the basics in high school. Brain development generally shows that a lot of development happens from 15-20.
We get [this question](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12kow43/how_and_when_did_we_settle_on_18_as_the_beginning/) a lot over on /r/AskHistorians. I can only speak to America but the same history holds true for most countries.
Most other countries end at 16.
Part of it is arbitrary. Another part is related to childhood development. The human creature tends to cross certain thresholds at certain ages. Kids across cultures learn to walk, talk, tie shoes, etc at about the same age. 18 is about the age a person is ready to leave the nest and live independently. Of course, every 16 thinks they are ready. So it is possible different societies stumbled into the same development timeline when it comes schooling the same way they all have the same timeline for potty training, puberty rituals, or military expectations.
In America, the legal age of an adult was dropped in 1971 from 21 to 18 for the Vietnam draft.
This depends a lot on the country. For instance, in the UK everything past sixteen is voluntary and really only for students trying to go to uni.
Well, I guess the UK is a good example, but you still need to be around 18 to go to college. It seems to be mostly an American thing though, German students also stop studying at 16 if they don't go to university. But they both send kids to higher education at 18, despite the lack of American influence in their education system
Because American school system is based on the Prussian model, which is the same as the German model
This is factually wrong, it’s obligatory to stay in some form of education until 18 here.
Nope, you can leave and just start a professional apprenticeship. Formal education is optional post-16.
An apprenticeship is counted as education mate.
By the time you're 18, you already know everything. So no need for more education. Source: I have two older teenagers.
Omg- 😳 mine too! They are experts in adulting with my 💰 money!
That starts at 14 for a lot of them.
It's true. Most people know more than their parents by 14, and then get even smarter through their teens. Until about 19 or 20, then usually their parents suddenly start becoming less stupid.
Usually it kicks in when they get their first actual job after a few months.
I often talk about the need to re-evaluate adolescence and adulthood. It shifts over time and across cultures. The average 18 year old in the US is not ready to go away for college. A 22yo is not ready for adult responsibilities. It’s been shifting a lot over the past 10 years (that I’ve noticed as a college prof). Part of it is what this gen is going through! Part of it is parenting. I’m a parent of a GenZ teen and his upbringing was very very different from my GenX/Xennial latchkey experience. For better or for worse.
I’m sorry but “a 22 year old not ready for adult responsibilities” is just something I can’t agree with.
I don’t mean to discourage discussion or debate :) This is just my perspective having closely taught and advised college students for the past two decades, both grads and undergrads. I’m basing this on thousands of 18-25yos. I’m not trying to disparage this age (I love my students!), but instead argue that we need to offer more supportive social structures instead of pushing them out of the nest underprepared. . It’s Others will have differing opinions based on culture, environment, etc. I also think 30s are far, far closer to what 20s used to be- in terms of stage of life, finances, even looks.
Well, as an educator myself, we need to look at the root causes of why students are being infantilized and combat it. People at that age need to be working jobs, having sexual relationships, and a sense of purpose to be fulfilled. Prepare the child for the road. NOT the road for the child.
Parenting changes over time. It’s sociocultural and historical. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it necessarily. My teen is less equipped to be independent as I was at his age. He’s also much more communicative, self-assured, and able to navigate relationships. A large part of this is the care and intention I put into my parenting, which is shared by a lot of other GenX parents.
Yeah, but life itself doesn’t change. They will be faced with very hard challenges and choices in the world (especially at this point in life), and only by facing adversity, can they rise to meet it. Young adults are not children unless they are consistently being taught that they are.
But life does change. It always has. Look at the career outlook for GenZ vs say GenX, for example. My career trajectory is basically nonexistent anymore. Look at how younger folks are delaying marriage, childbearing, and home ownership. These are all interrelated. With a delay in these typical “adult” activities and a change in how careers are defined, etc., why wouldn’t there also be a shift in how we parent and educate?
Because delaying those big “life steps” creates stunted, unhappy adults. Because physically and mentally they WILL be adults (if not emotionally). There is also a reason why Gen Z is suffering from more mental issues than many other generations. I see it every day in my profession. The kids are NOT all right. It’s obvious that a lot of this traces back to social media and screen use. By obstructing normal life steps, like getting and maintaining a job, for example, they won’t have the social tools to be successful. Not having real, face-to-face relationships is extremely important for overall quality and longevity of life. My students reading and mathematics scores are so low that we’re having to completely adjust our curriculum which will only make things harder for them later. Most of them are on some kind of medication, have a behavioral plan, or IEP. They have no social skills with other kids leading to lots of altercations. So what we are doing right now is not working. Perhaps we should start treating young people more like how it used to be. Nothing helps growing up like having grown up responsibilities.
Same thing happened in the US during the 1918 pandemic, though. The socio-emotional, educational, and career outcomes of an entire generational cohort were negatively impacted. Of course we are seeing this again. A pandemic will tend to do that 🤷🏽♀️ There is little evidence that delaying life steps leads to negative outcomes. Child labor laws, laws restricting marriage age, laws that keep kids in school all demonstrate this. In addition, research demonstrates that parents who wait to have children tend to have higher education and income and demonstrate more consistent and warmer parenting styles-and this predicts more positive childhood outcomes. It’s really difficult to make a positive argument for marriage and parenthood at 18 (or even 25) these days… We used to celebrate the onset of physical puberty across cultures as a sign of adulthood-this coming with real adulthood responsibilities. But would you say that a quinceañera or bar mitzvah should mean the same thing today?
The later you make it, the more expensive it is for taxpayers. That's why it's not later than 18 in the U.S. How it got to be as late as 18 here, is a more interesting question. My grandfather, born in the 1890s, didn't go beyond "primary" school, and I suppose very few girls did, so I suppose that back in those days most kids didn't go to high school, mostly the upper middle class boys, and so it wasn't that expensive for the government to fund, and it had important political support from the upper middle class. I'm not sure of that, just a supposition.
School is babysitting and people are considered adults at 18
Well, why are people considered adults at 18 then?
So you can pick up a rifle and go die for your country
Think about it historically. It used to be younger - 13 to 16. But progressives argued against sending people of that age into factories, marriage, and/or war. So, it was moved up to 18. Why not older? Because the powerful still want their young cannon fodder.
At 18 you can sign a contract without your parent’s co signature.
Not universally true. In Alabama, the age of majority is 19. No legal contracts until that age.
That is sad. I ref high school sports and youth leagues. One of the problems is finding ref's for the youth leagues. High school age ref's could ref the lower age leagues very well , but the younger aged refs had to have their parents sign the contracts to ref. I grew up in Idaho and I could drive at age 14 (daylight only). I couldn't vote until I was 21 but I could shoot a rifle in the military at 17-18. Now voting is 14 and driving is 16. But drinking is back to 21.
What do you mean voting is 14?
Well, many people don't.
Most people finish high school at 17/18/19, and most people who go to college enter it at that age
Like many issues dealing with public schools, cost has a lot to do with it. There has been talk of public funded pre-school and early child care/education, some want the public schools to take on the task. School people say no they are already trying to do too much with too little resources. Add to this the fuzzy idea that at 18 a person is a "legal" adult, except for all those exceptions. Mandating a person to stay in high school for more time would be a legal problem. Colleges would not like it. The would love 17 to be the grad rate for high school. They always want more people to fleece.
Universal public education. The law says it has to provide free education for kids. 18 tends to be the age of legal adulthood. Hence when you start paying for school. Going to college at 18 is because it’s hard to get a good paying job without a degree. So why not get that degree sooner
The line had to be drawn SOMEWHERE. So an age where the majority of people were finished growing and developing physically seemed like a good age to cut off school and go to the workforce. It has been different ages at different times. So it just got drawn where the prevailing cultures would count that as "good enough."
The US generally has a 13 year school program (some 12). The youngest members of classes can graduate at 17, and states can age students out as late as 26 (Texas) though it's generally 21-22. The person we can partially blame (in the US) is Horace Mann, a reformer in the mid 1900s who advocated for schools to split into three groups (elementary, middle, and secondary) and out of the single room school-house model. Secondary school systems became more prevalent as industrialization reduced the required work force and older children were being edged out of manual labor by men and women with dependents to provide for. Prior to this, we have to also acknowledge labor reform movements that whittled down harsh working conditions. Maximum work hours for women and children were 56 hours a week in the early 1800s, and were slowly whittled down. Factories were facing laws requiring them to still teach their child employees reading, writing, and arithmetic. New England started setting laws limiting employment of children younger than 9 (and in some places, younger than 14) and setting daily hours limits at 10-12 hours. Child welfare groups found increasing issues with child vagrancy and began pushing for child support. Eventually, increasing labor power had a major impact. It was a huge problem that capitalists could hire children at $2 a week while grown men expected $6 a week, and so long as children could cheaply fill in the gaps, labor had a hard time leveraging their power to improve wages and working conditions. Long story short: rather than being bored at school, [children were in situations like the ones in these photographs](https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/07/child-labor-in-america-100-years-ago/397478/) unless they were well off.
I'd offer that while Mann gets credit for a bunch of stuff but 13 years isn't really one of them. He was more focused on grammar school - children leaving after 7 or 8 years. High school came about well after he was dead. If you're interested, we get [this question](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12kow43/how_and_when_did_we_settle_on_18_as_the_beginning/) a fair amount over on /r/AskHistorians.
In the Nordics it's at ~20
US needs to drop the age down bc these kids don’t want to be there. They don’t value education so let them see what it’s like out there
Make it 15-16
It's probably a function of when societies deemed people old enough (mature) for starting a career.
Where I grew up we finish 5th form at 16-17. Sometimes as young as 15 if you skipped a year. Its different with each education system.
Because capitalists love to exploit children
Because the job is from 18. And the Slave must be in the system every day, every minute, forever. No gap for take a breath. That's. 😱🤬😭
It’s mostly timed to match human development. By five most kids can function independently on the basics, like going to the bathroom, talking and eating lunch. So they start primary school. Around 10/11 kids are have generally learned to read and write. They are also starting to hit puberty pretty hard. So we dump them all in a high school. By 18 kids are generally fully physically developed. They are physically capable of reproduction and are probably having sex. At 18 kids can generally function safely in society with not adult supervision. They can cook and drive and work and otherwise fend for themselves. So we let them out of high school.
As someone who works at a community college, we could easily have high performing students start college classes earlier, but other students need to learn the basics in high school. Brain development generally shows that a lot of development happens from 15-20.
It's the longest Time that educators can be bothered spending mandatory time with children.
We get [this question](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12kow43/how_and_when_did_we_settle_on_18_as_the_beginning/) a lot over on /r/AskHistorians. I can only speak to America but the same history holds true for most countries.
Should be like the Amish and Laura Ingles.
If a person is still a child at 18, they are still going to be a child at age 58. So why not?
should stop at 15/16. Most of the high school students in my experience are borderline worthless and teachers are mostly babysitters.
Because the US allows for two years of hormonal insanity called "junior high". Other countries don't put up with that shit.