A number of readers have responded with good comments to the ongoing discussion of “college-for-all.”
I love education, love learning, and want everyone to be able to get as much education as they want, but I have my doubts about the goal of college for all.
Maybe the most irritating aspect of this issue is that college has become unaffordable for many, many young people. They may want to go to college, but they can’t pay the costs, and our state and federal government is content to saddle them with heavy debt that they will spend years repaying. We can’t have a goal of being “first in the world” in college graduates if the cost of college continues to soar.
Also, I am not sure why it is important to be first in the world. So what if we are seventh or twelfth in the world? Why does it matter? I think we should aim for the goal of being first in the world in college affordability. Then let everyone get the education they need and want, when they need it and want it.
I think that our leaders and policymakers pretend that if everyone goes to college, everyone will make more money because college graduates make more money than high school graduates or high school dropouts. This is specious reasoning. Having more educated people is good for the economy, but if everyone has a college degree, then a college degree will not produce any economic gains for those who hold it. If everyone has a college degree, then a college degree would become the minimum credential needed for any kind of job. Then, to see a differential in economic return, people would need to have at least a master’s degree or a doctorate. Producing more college degrees does not produce more high-paying jobs.
I admit that I don’t have the answer to all the questions I raise. Many of the readers of this blog know more than I do, which is why I like to reprint their comments for a larger audience. I read all the comments and learn from them.
Here are some responses to the question of whether “college for all” should be a national goal. I think it was Bill Gates (who else?) who suggested this goal. I have visited many classrooms for children in first-grade, second-grade, third-grade, etc. where college banners decorated the walls. May I say I found it creepy?
Ann Larson sent this unusually thoughtful commentary, in which she argues that college-for-all is not even an important question. She added in her comment: ”
| The idea that education creates jobs is an infuriating myth. |
More comments:
In high school education, we talk a lot about getting kids into college, and we know that, due to the economics of higher education, there really is a college for everyone, ready to take their money and offer them a spot. What we talk far less about is whether the kids who got in stay and succeed in college. Very few high schools do follow-up studies on their graduates. Who has the money? And why would we ask a question that we don’t want to know the answer to?
If we did ask, however, and find out the truth about how many students from even high-performing high schools can’t manage to graduate (or, for some of them, even make it through freshman year), then maybe we would help high school students think more strategically about their futures. Not necessarily about whether further education is appropriate, but about what kind? A four-year liberal arts degree? Or an 6-month or 18-month or two-year certification course that ends in a qualification for a decent job?
The latter would be a better choice for so many students, were they not all being raised to believe that not going to college right after high school, as if college were merely 13th grade, is a disgrace.
Here’s another:
| Will Richardson tweeted this table from the Bureau of Labor Statistics yesterday. It has some very interesting information about the 30 occupations with the largest projected employment growth from 2010-2020.Will Richardson @willrich45 EVERY child needs to be college ready? Really? http://1.usa.gov/MxNiX #edchatWhile it may be a noble goal to have every student go to college, we must not lose sight of something that my dad reminded me of what I was looking for schools: Education is not vocation. We should be encouraging students to go to school to be further educated, not to get a job. Another: |
| We have to reclaim the “College For All” rhetoric and not allow a college education to be only about getting a high-paying job. Is it our colleges’ fault that the jobs available are at the Apple Store? Is it our colleges’ fault that the Apple Store only pays $12 an hour? Is the value of a college education only found in the salary figures of graduates? That’s like measuring a high school based solely on the test scores of its graduates. The thing about basing success or value on one variable is that nothing in life is ever that simple. Some folks who graduate from college will be homeless and destitute. Most will have middle-of-the-road-paying jobs that support their families. Some will be gazillionaires. But the same can be said for people who do not go to college. And the reasons why these outcomes occur may have nothing to do with the education the person received. They may be homeless in spite of a good education. Or they may be a gazillionaire in spite of a bad one.We must not rail against the edureformers for pushing college for all. Instead, we should take back the rhetoric and remind the edureformers that a good education will give kids options. We have to stop the edureformers from making success only about economics and money. We have to stop separating “college” from “career” and do what “okeducationtruths” suggests and make sure our students have choices when they graduate from each level. The “college” and “career” separation is a 19th century idea. It suggests that some are “college material” and others are not. It persists the class struggle. Today’s society and economy is about flexibility and options. It’s about crafting your own future based on a combination of your proclivities and your work ethic. Success today is not only measured by dollars, but also by how happy you are making those dollars. A good education, whether it stops at high school or with a PhD, should help people not only make a good wage, but also figure out whether that wage is all that matters.The truth is all post-secondary options – work, military, technical school, college – are just more education. When the kid who can’t read tells a teacher he wants to go to college, we should say, “well, in order to do that, you have to read.” We should not say, “come on, kid, you can’t do that. You should be a plumber. They make great money!” Don’t plumbers have to read, too? Teachers get a bad name when they tell kids they can’t do something. Let’s just educate them the best we know how, and let the future take care of itself. |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I don’t believe it always makes sense. We use a crucible of standardized tests to force older children down a path that does not always suit them.
Their teachers know this, their parents know this. Local control of education is the answer.
Some of our graduates need to be plumbers, electricians, masons, auto mechanics, cooks, HVAC technicians and so on. These are jobs that CANNOT be outsourced by those same folks who are pushing college-for-all.
The underlying problem with the main arguments of “college for all” is the notion that education’s main purpose is to train a person for a job. Education – knowing – has inherent value, although this fact seems to elude a lot of people who talk about educational requirements. But beyond the personal, there is an enormous amount to be gained by a civil society in having a well-educated and informed citizenry. Public education is a cornerstone of a free and democratic nation, and the benefits of a well-designed and accessible system of good schools redound to the benefit of all.
The shift in this country over the past 50 years to an economy based in the financial industry – as opposed to one that produces goods and services – has made profits and wealth our most important product, and has changed the conversation about the benefits of public education and ways to make it even better to one about money and how we can get more. Don’t see that changing any time soon.
That’s crazy how teachers are putting up college paraphernalia in second/third grade. Before you know it we will see this in preschool.
Being overly qualified can be detrimental a well.
Telling a high school student that he/she has to read to succeed in any future career is a good first step. The problem is that many secondary schools have no functional program to teach pupils to read. Expecting content area teachers to be able to teach basic reading works very infrequently with them having umpty eleven students in the room.
It is such an elitist viewpoint that everyone has to go to college. There are plenty of people for whom it simply is not a desire or even an option. Imagine a world without all the utterly essential jobs that don’t require college degrees. Our society would be lost without the people who perform them. I wrote about Thoughts on a Popular Myth http://photomatt7.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/thoughts-on-a-popular-myth/
South Korea has been grappling with a glut of college degrees and limited job opportunities: http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4583&Itemid=194
College became a symbol of freedom and equality in the AA community because it used to be very difficult for a black person to get a college education between the end of slavery and the end of Jim Crow. To this day they often look down on tradesmen as uneducated, even if they make middle class money and have a nice house. But college is not suitable for or the desire of everyone. Vocational training programs are a very valid positive alternative. There is no harm in any honest work although everyone should seek education to their personal best. We need to get past the idea that working with your hands and your mind is somehow less worthy than working with your mind alone. A coverall is just as professional as a suit. The skilled trades need professionals.
With this I think back to Hurricane Katrina. Louisiana did not need bankers, accountants, engineers or even teachers for a while. What they needed were roofers, electricians, plumbers, drywallers, masons, painters and heating and air technicians as well as folks who could fix all those downed cell towers. My next door neighbor, a heating and air man, when I went back to St. Bernard Parish to see what I could salvage had a brand new, bright red, Kubota digger in his carport. He and his brothers were fixing their own flooded house, but he had enough work to keep him busy 24/7 for months.
Louisiana did not have enough laborers and skilled tradespeople to clean up from Katrina. One New Orleans teacher was making money by gutting houses. Our EBD teacher did security work for FEMA. I suspect there were more. And in came the Mexicans ready to rescue the city. They know the trades and are proud of them. And a 17 year old boy from St. Bernard Parish supervised a crew and drove heavy equipment because his mother, grandma and uncle were Cuban refugees from way back and he could speak Spanish. Made $35 an hour and a place to stay! His mother worried she would not be able to get him back to school for his senior year after tasting that money.
To this day, America needs skilled trades people. Some may need to go to college. Others learn in the military or in vocational schools. Many learn by doing. They make good money and have great careers. Why do you think it costs $100 just to get your computer or car serviced? College can be a very good thing. But success depends on what you do best and how you learn.
All children need to have the opportunity to become their personal best to get the most and the best kind of education for them. Just because you work with your hands does not mean you are stupid. One person I know who can fix anything has a degree from LSU but the other a country boy from rural south Georgia barely graduated from high school and got training in 7 vocations in the army. He had trouble reading anything but repair manuals and schematics, but that is what he needed. I’ll never forget his words: A motor is a motor is a motor.