A student who can barely afford college may have to work a large number of hours to pay for college, reducing the amount of time for academic work, which increases the risk of failing courses or having to take a lower number of courses or credits than otherwise desired. This applies to the first year as well as later years.
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In my experience, yes, there is certainly a shortage of vocational programs.
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The problem seems to be that we’re sending students who aren’t college-ready to colleges anyway, which may or may not even serve the interests of these students. More college-ready high schools graduates would be a major improvement. They’d graduate college sooner and contribute to their own wellbeing and the society sooner.
The question is how best to use the limited amount of resources. Spending on K-12 would get better returns if the followings are true:
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Most students who didn’t get a decent K-12 education face very long odds to succeed in college, regardless of the amount of help (financial or otherwise) they may receive in college.
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It costs far more to remedy, in college, any educational deficiencies as a result of poor K-12 education.
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Sadly, there is nothing new or surprising in this report. More students nationwide start at community colleges than at 4-year colleges, and the graduation rate at 2-year colleges is only about 30-35%. See COE - Undergraduate Retention and Graduation Rates
There is societal expectation/pressure to “go to college” and so a lot of kids start at the local CC rather than telling family and friends they’re done after HS. Once there they find themselves unhappy or struggling and quit. A friend of mine back in HS was on the “stoner” track in HS so they steered him to into basic classes where you pass if you show up often enough. He went to the local CC and they signed him up for ordinary classes. He said in his History class the first week or two the teacher called on him, he answered the question, the other kids laughed. He quit that day.
Absolutely. Until the 1960s, people could find well-paying interesting jobs with only a high school degree. In fact, most of the jobs that today require a college degree only require the education that can be provided in a decent high school.
On the other hand, high school is far too intense for kids that age. Kids at 14-18 need 8 hours of sleep, time to eat, and time to be physically active. They should not be sitting on their butts 10 hours a day studying. It’s not surprising that most incorporate so little from what they learn in high school.
Personally, I think that kids should start school a year later, high school should be 5 years, and classes be limited to 9 in the morning to 3 PM, with a lunch break. Alternatively, the entire system can be reworked. Kids with talents and interests in the professions should be introduced to these early and engaging part time by their last year of high school.
What is happening now is that jobs which just require basic education now require an undergraduate, and, for some reason, people think that the undergraduate needs to come from a name-brand college.
So, instead of getting an education in high school, students are spending their time preparing for college admission. They are not preparing for college, mind you. They are creating transcripts that increase their chances at being accepted to a name-brand college. Most of them will end up taking these classes as college freshmen anyways.
I mean, look at what’s going on here. How many students are coming on here to ask “what set of courses is best for colleges?” Not “what do I need for a well-rounded education?”, not even “what classes do I need to take if I want a career in biology or chemistry?”. The classes they take, the activities in which they engage, how they spend their time, is all about “what college will accept me?”.
I think that every students who wants to attend a four year college should have the ability to do so. However, so many kids really do not want to attend a college, they want to have a college degree to help them get a job, or for the prestige that a college degree brings. I do not know how many kids would even want to attend college if they knew that they could have a decent, well-paying career without the college degree.
So teach more in high school and have it longer, do not require or even prefer a college degree for jobs that a high school education is good enough for, and do not require or prefer a bachelors degree for a jobs for which an associates degree will suffice.
Kids who learn the professions should also get a full education. I believe that a carpenter should still have a good grounding in science, math and literature. I want welders to be versed in literature, sanitary workers who understand astronomy, and roofers who have a good grasp on world history and politics. So these should be taught in high school, and taught well.
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That seems to be a larger and more difficult problem than just allocating educational spending. Employers and union-like groups favor increased credential requirements for jobs, requiring new entrants in the labor market to get more education, training, and credentials at their own expense first and limiting career changing opportunities. Reversing this trend requires pushback against interests that like increasing credential requirements.
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What jobs available pre 1960 with a HS diploma now require a college degree? I’d say there are still plenty of well paying, interesting lobs that are available with a HS diploma.
My kids high school day isn’t 10 hours long. It’s just a bit longer (1/2 hour) than your suggestion, 7:30 - 2. They take 8 classes each semester so there is plenty of room for a variety of courses. Much more variety is available now than when I graduated HS 35 years ago. What is so different about kids these days or is it the teachers, etc?
Again, not sure which jobs now require a bachelor’s degree now that could be done with a HS education.
We have for decades pushed kids to think that college is a must. That, in my.kind, was a mistake. It’s no wonder we are where we are with kids stressing over the best college. The reality is many could do very well with a HS diploma, an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s from a state school. And yes, I agree, we should now be shouting this reality from the rooftops, a college degree isn’t necessary to be successful.
Not every student that wants to attend a four year college should be catered to. That’s part of how we got here. Not every student is capable of excelling in college. That’s probably an unpopular opinion but it’s probably reality. Yes, a quality HS education should be available but that also depends on students and parents doing their part to work hard and fully participate in that process.
A well rounded education is available in HS. Sure it doesn’t go as in-depth as what is available at a four year college. I’d say much of that depth can also be picked up outside of school also. And the reality is, not everyone is interested in astronomy, the arts, literature, politics, etc. I actually worked as a carpenter for a couple years. It didn’t require a well rounded education. It did require math skills, good hand eye coordination and the ability to work to exacting specifications. No degree required. I also did roofing and electrical work. These jobs can pay very well and do not require even a HS diploma.
A resurgence of a trade path in HS would be a good start. We can provide these opportunities to students just like we did years ago. A few school systems still do. All of them should.
We have pushed students towards the best, sometimes most expensive college because we told them it was necessary. Now it’s time to ratchet that back and yes, push to provide the best HS education possible. Not everyone goes to college or wants to go to college. Everyone deserves to have a quality HS education available to them. Everyone needs to also do their part to work hard while getting that education and not just blow it off. It is more than just a school or a funding issue.
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Arent there too many universities?
Most kids go to college to ultimately find a job. If you graduate from a bottom tier university where recruiters will only take a few kids out of each class, what do the rest of the students do? They spent 4 years there spending thousands of dollars (maybe over $100k) on what?
It’s pretty obvious there are kids who just arent academically inclined that go to college and waste 4 years (or more) of resources.
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While I do not disagree that there are many students who would be happier following career paths that do not go through college, we should be very careful about designating who these kids are.
With the huge inequities that we see in education, it is very easy for a highly academically talented kid from the bottom 20% by income to be designated as “not college material” because they did not even have the basic resources, not to mention decent schooling to demonstrate this. Conversely, kids from the top 1% by wealth are being pushed through “elite” high schools and colleges, despite being, at best, mediocre.
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I think the key is to nurture these students early, perhaps by identifying and prioritizing to enroll them early in gifted programs, which can be funded by resources outside of their local school districts.
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But how “accurate” would identifying such students for special gifted programs be?
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I’ll speak up and say that marketing and advertising agency jobs “require” a college degree but most are, in fact, trades that could be learned through co-op/apprenticeship approaches. I say this as someone who’s worked in that industry for decades, has a 4-year degree + some grad school and has hired for all of the various roles in advertising. Anecdotally, when it’s been challenged the reponse is often something along the lines of “well, we need folks that might have some social connection with our clients.” It is a foundation of the good ole boys network.
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Objectively, there’re some measures that gifted programs have used. They aren’t 100% accurate, but they don’t need to be.
Subjectively, every teacher, even at the kindergarten level, knows who the best students are in her class.
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But that comes back to the problem of teacher biases for what should be irrelevant factors (SES, race, ethnicity, connections, etc.) could influence such evaluations.
Also, early and late bloomers could end up rather different from how they were seen in kindergarten.
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I’m not sure i understand the point of the article or of this thread. These people don’t seem to be living in cardboard boxes. The unemployment rate in this country hovers somewhere south of 4%. Is the argument that time spent in college is a waste of money? I’m old enough to remember when similar arguments were made against wasting time pursuing a high school degree “when you could be out working.” Giving people a chance to improve themselves despite the odds seems to be the American way. It’s not efficient; but is that the worst thing in the world?
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This is correlation without causation.
Employers would be THRILLED to eliminate credentialing. Reduces the time and cost to hire, makes it easier to replace employees who leave. But can a hospital hire a HS grad to work as a pharm tech when experience has shown that the typical HS grad in their region does not understand what a decimal point, why 10 mg is not the same as 100 mg, why a person weighing 100 kilos does not get the same dosage as a person weighing 100 lbs?
No, that hospital cannot. So stating an AA degree for their local community college where the kid has both the AA AND a certificate from the Pharm Tech program (a made up credential if there ever was one) is the only way to get halfway to a modestly competent employee.
I could go on for hours- but I won’t. But the issue is NOT that employers require credentials which forces the kids into college. The issue is that HS grads are woefully unprepared for contemporary jobs which require brains not brawn. And sometimes a mistake can be fatal.
Chicken/Egg? HS grads are not well prepared. So employers require post HS education. Improve the HS product and the made up credentials and certificate programs would vanish overnight.
I’ve worked alongside corporate training- for corporations which spend hundreds of millions of dollars on training. The best trainers and curriculum developers and Learning professionals can teach virtually anything. Except Reading, Writing and "Rithmetic. A 23 year old shows up for work without these core skills, the most sophisticated and skilled corporate training program ain’t gonna work.
Some of these 23 year olds have undiagnosed learning disabilities which is really sad… but we live in a society which doesn’t seem to care that the 8 year old who can’t read becomes a 10 year old who can’t read becomes a HS grad who can’t read. And name one Fortune 500 company which can tackle THAT problem all on its own…
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We just had our pool remodeled. We had some issues with the programming of the computer on the new upgraded computer and solar. The pool company had us call in a “specialist”.
The specialist graduated from Berkeley in engineering.
He didn’t like the job(s) nor the stress and kind of fell into this job because he was doing a favor for a friend with a pool. The friend told his pool guy and the pool guy referred him to other owners and pool companies.
He is well regarded and sets his own hours, gets paid really well, meets homeowners, and is really good at explaining causes, teaching clients how to work the system, and he’s into efficient technology. He’s worth every penny.
Very smart guy, so I don’t know if he hadn’t gone to Berkeley, whether things would be different because he was obviously smart enough to get into Berkeley.
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We aren’t going to completely eliminate human biases, especially unconscious biases. That’s where objective measures can play a role. Teachers, for example, can make recommendations, ideally enthusiastic recommendations, but they still need to be confirmed by some objective measures.
Entries into a gifted program can occur at different grade levels. A late bloomer can be introduced into the program whenever s/he “blooms” and is identified at a higher grade level.
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My response is…maybe. Education is exactly what you make of it. Students who gain study habits and maintain good grades in high school, generally can expect to do the same in college. If the student slacks-off and gets mediocre grades and barely graduates, then they can expect to generally do the same in college.
Even then, a lot of underperforming high school graduates will get it together and perform well in college. Sometimes high achieving high school students will get poor grades in college because of burnout, parties, etc.
Also, some high achieving students will go to prestigious colleges, but not find a decent job because of an unmarketable major. Other students will go to much less prestigious schools, and find good careers because of a marketable major.
So my advice…it’s up to you. Work hard and major in something the job market wants. If you find you hate it, you can switch careers or open a bike shop.
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I think the above is absolutely correct, but that I would add some nuance based on my kids’ experience at prep school. Obviously the analogy below is not perfect because the students are 4 years older and more mature when they go to college, and parents are less involved. Nevertheless I think it is relevant.
My kids have had friends who came to high school underprepared by their middle schools. Almost all of those friends knew how to study hard and put the sweat/effort in. In fact, some of them came from schools that were a lot more demanding in terms of hours of homework, frequency of exams, and general expectations than my kids’ middle schools were. Many also have come from public and parochial schools more structured than their peers from wealthy public schools and private K-8 schools. And some had much greater home and sibling responsibilities that they had to juggle while getting their work done. In other words, those kids know how to work hard.
Sure there were a handful who had skated by in middle school, doing the bare minimum and still earning As (as is true for some kids from well-resourced communities). However, I would still say that my kids’ friends who struggled the most were actually those who put in hours and hours of work but could not gain much traction. The problem was that they spent freshman and sophomore year beating their heads against a brick wall because type of work and the classroom culture at prep school was so incredibly different than their middle schools. Plus their prep schools have demanded that students self-advocate and interact with teachers in a way that can seem baffling to people new to that world not to mention the many unwritten social rules and classroom expectations that seem perfectly obvious to kids from that world but are unknown to outsiders. Note this issue actually came up both with “first generation” prep school kids as well as some international students entering from very different school systems, but transition difficulties hit the low income kids the most and they had the fewer additional supports to help them through the transition (one of my daughters has a wealthy friend who goes to boarding school but meets with a privately paid tutor over zoom every single weeknight during study hall). Finally, while I don’t think this is the biggest issue, there are also some “old school” teachers at those prep schools who will not and cannot believe that certain demographics can succeed academically. Those teachers’ behavior really does impact the students.
That is a long-winded way of saying that I think some of these same issues come up in college for high-achieving FGLI students who seem underprepared to the outside observer. I don’t mean to talk about the topic in an overly pessimistic way. I actually think that because they have good study habits and have always been high achieving, many “underprepared” students learn to pivot despite the culture shock, living away from home for the first time, and professors’ biases BUT it can be very very difficult and I think it leads to some dropping out not because the material itself is too hard but because the adjustment to college is so hard as well as the financial stress that college brings many students.
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