How far can the government change the age of adulthood?

The limits are only what won’t cause a revolution powerful enough that it cannot be put down by military force. Government can do whatever the people let them get away with, as well as anything the people lack the power to stop them from doing. Aside from that, there are no limits.

There are efforts in the US to lower the voting age. Some states offer ‘pre-registration” so that those under age can be ready as soon as they become voting age. And there are efforts to make the voting age 16.

So all it takes is a willing government as @jerv describes, or a populace that follows the process sot get it changed.

They already have raised the age of senior citizenship in the US somewhat by raising the Social Security qualifying age. I won’t get SSI until I am 67 yrs 2 months.

Research on the brain is now showing that our brains are still devolping until 25. That’s when finally the part of the brain that understands there are consequences to actions is fully developed. It’s arguable under the age of 25 people are not really adults, because understanding consequence is a big part of what makes us responsible human beings.

I don’t see moving most laws past the age of 18. I still don’t understand how the drinking age can be 21 in America. Since high school ends at around age 18, that’s when legal adulthood has to start in my opinion, I don’t see a way around it. Maybe they can extend it if the “child” is still in secondary school or financially dependent? A friend of mine just a few days ago said she is ready for her son to be old enough that if he does something stupid she can’t get n trouble for it. He’s not a bad kid, but he has done a few hairbrained things where someone could have been hurt, God forbid. He is 17 now.

18 is also a good age to recruit for the military. Not completely understanding consequences works in the favor of the military in some ways.

It’s also worth noting the the age of majority has increased as we’ve become more industrialized and more/longer education is needed to enter the workforce. Way back, it was as soon as you were remotely able-bodied. Once literacy and basic math were required, it went up into the mid/late-teens. Nowadays, with so many jobs requiring college education, I’ve heard it said that 25 is the new 18.

@JLeslie That’s more than half the life expectancy of a person barring medical intervention, and even with the benefits of modern medicine, it means that many are only sound-minded adults for ⅓ of their life.

@jerv I agreed with the 18 rule and I think drinking age should be moved back to 18, so you don’t have to convince me that 25 would be ridiculous. As far as the example in the original question regarding when a student can quit school, I would rather see more effort in letting children complete school at an earlier age. A lot of kids quit not because they can’t get through the schoolwork, but for social reasons. High school can be awful for some kids. High school can easily be done in three years, they should have more programs with that option.

@JLeslie Here is the discussion from a gaming forum that I was thinking about when I made my previous post. Most especially, post #15:

“The age of consent has steadily increased in industrial societies in so small part due to the social effects of the indistrial revolution. The need for more education combined with more labor saving devices resulted in people spending more and more time in school. It began as an artifical social construct called ‘childhood’, which justified mandatory government provided schooling. As educational requirement increased newer age classess were invinted so that this mandatory schooling could be extended. Now, with college education being almost necessary for survival a 22 year old is considered a child in some respects.”

…and #16:

“In the 19th century it was legal to marry children as young as 10 in the United States. Now that puberty is earlier (girls in the US have their first blood at age 8 with some regularity thanks to good nutrition and exposure to estrogen analogues in endemic pollutants), the age of consent is later.
“I would say that after the “purity movements” of the arly 20th century it has become basically unthinkable in the US to seriously entertain the idea of having sex with 10 year olds whether they have regular periods or not. Scroll the clock back a hundred and fifty years, and the general thinking was that it was laudable to start children into a monogomous sexual relationship before conception was even possible to make extra certain that the next generation was within wedlock.”

While no discussion about the age of majority (“adulthood”) is complete without a long discussion about sex, just think about that last statement from a strictly “What is adult?” perspective for a moment. Think about how societal norms have changed, and legislation has followed suit over the years.