Everyone can graduate from college, right?
Posted by Joel Friedlander | 1 Comment
“Because economic progress and educational achievement go hand in hand, educating every American student to graduate prepared for college and success in a new work force is a national imperative,” the White House said in a statement. “Meeting this challenge requires that state standards reflect a level of teaching and learning needed for students to graduate ready for success in college and careers.”
So reads the President’s new initiative for educating every high school student to graduate from college.
You have all gone to college, so I ask you, can every high school educate all of its students to a level that will enable them to graduate from college? If they can, what will a college education mean? What does a college education mean today?
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This is a really interesting dilemma. Of course, if every single person gets a college degree then the playing field becomes level (actually a little more level because there’s still the differences of college and/or university you attend to distinguish everyone).
If we get to the point where every high school graduate continues on to college then we’ll live in a society where college education at the lower echelons will basically be a repetition of high school.
I read a really compelling piece in The New Republic a while back (I’ll try to find it later) that argued it’s sort of absurd to have this national goal of sending everyone to college. No! Not everyone needs to have a college education. We need skilled laborers, mechanics, people working in manufacturing and on assembly lines. Someone has to collect the garbage and clean the streets. Someone has to drive our taxis and buses and trains. These people do not need college educations. In fact, they barely need an education beyond the age of 15 or 16. So says the article, anyway.
There was a time in this country when education stopped for many people at 13 or 14. Once they’d learned to read and write and do basic mathematics, then they were ready for their lives working on the family farm or in some other labor position. I don’t see anything wrong with that and certainly there’s no shame in it.
I suppose the difference now is that a lot of those jobs are now done by undocumented immigrants, who very often don’t have any education beyond high school.
However, I don’t really think it will diminish the significance of a college degree from Harvard, Yale, Vassar, Williams, Conn, NYU, Stanford, etc. if lots of other people have college degrees from various community colleges. It will just mean we’re keeping people out of the workforce for an unnecessarily extended period of time.