According to the 1940 census, only one-third of the 74.8 million Americans who were 25 years of age or older at that time had gone beyond the eighth grade. Only one-fourth were high school graduates; one-twentieth had graduated from four-year colleges or universities.19 Teenagers by that time were staying in school much longer than their elders had, but still only 49 percent of 17-year-olds graduated from high school.
