This qualitative, grounded theory study focused on the perspectives of high school seniors, college freshmen, and working young adults in Orange County, California, to create a useful and practical theory about high school students' civic participation as it relates to students' enrollment in postsecondary education. Data collection consisted of 30 face-to-face interviews composed of open-ended questions. Seven themes emerged from the analysis of data regarding the participants' community service activities pertaining to higher education enrollment: (1) helping the community without any compensation that produces benefits to that community is how young people define community service; (2) cleaning and working with people in need and elderly are the most popular types of community service among young people; (3) parents have little influence in their children's perception and attitudes toward community service; (4) community service has no influence in the decision of young people to attend college; (5) some young people think community service should be required for high school students; (6) giving extra credits is how school administrators can encourage community service participation from students and; (7) environment-related activities and helping people in need are two forms of community service that should be encouraged in high school. Two possible community service theories were extracted from the themes based on the participants' responses: (1) community service has no influence in the decision of young people to attend higher education and (2) participation in community service should not be mandatory for high school students but should be actively encouraged by high school administrators. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]