American Education
I just saw some article about Obama proposing 2 free years of community college in an effort to make college as universal as high school. Naturally everyone's applauding this. 'Ray Obama!
But... what if... what if a high school diploma actually meant something? What if it indicated that a student has learned some baseline set of skills? What if getting a diploma took a little effort, instead of being a virtual guarantee? It's not especially hard to imagine; once upon a time, in the not so distant past, this was true.
Maybe then an average person, who maybe isn't really very interested in higher education, who maybe just wants to make a decent living, who maybe never really was very academically inclined, can start building their life straight out of high school, instead of spending another 2 years jumping through hoops.
Why do so many students choose to spend 2 years in community college before transfering to a 4 year university? To save money, right? By taking the pre-reqs they don't care about, that don't really matter for their major or their future careers. Blow through those in CC, then go focus on the classes they'll use. These pre-reqs are supposed to be about higher education, about expanding your mind and exposing you to different disiplines.
But that's not why many, maybe even most, students go to college anymore. They go because without a college degree, their options are severely limited. They might face minimum wage salaries for their entire working lives. It's not about higher education, it's about meeting the baseline qualifications for jobs that never used to require a degree.
So which is it? Is college higher education or a new take on trade school? If it's a new variety of trade school, what is the point of forcing an engineer to pass an english class, or a psych major to take calculus? If these standards were reformed, perhaps students could get their desired degrees in less time for less money by only taking classes that relate to their major.
But instead of reforming either high school or college, Obama's just trying to effectively make a 2 year degree mandatory in much the same way that a high school diploma is effectively mandatory. Young Americans with no interest in higher education will now have to wait another 2 years to start working. Will the slightly increased earning potential outweight the 2 years of opportunity costs when they could have been learning applicable skills on the job and earning money? What is the long-term vision here? Does everyone want a college education? Why should everyone need one?
But... what if... what if a high school diploma actually meant something? What if it indicated that a student has learned some baseline set of skills? What if getting a diploma took a little effort, instead of being a virtual guarantee? It's not especially hard to imagine; once upon a time, in the not so distant past, this was true.
Maybe then an average person, who maybe isn't really very interested in higher education, who maybe just wants to make a decent living, who maybe never really was very academically inclined, can start building their life straight out of high school, instead of spending another 2 years jumping through hoops.
Why do so many students choose to spend 2 years in community college before transfering to a 4 year university? To save money, right? By taking the pre-reqs they don't care about, that don't really matter for their major or their future careers. Blow through those in CC, then go focus on the classes they'll use. These pre-reqs are supposed to be about higher education, about expanding your mind and exposing you to different disiplines.
But that's not why many, maybe even most, students go to college anymore. They go because without a college degree, their options are severely limited. They might face minimum wage salaries for their entire working lives. It's not about higher education, it's about meeting the baseline qualifications for jobs that never used to require a degree.
So which is it? Is college higher education or a new take on trade school? If it's a new variety of trade school, what is the point of forcing an engineer to pass an english class, or a psych major to take calculus? If these standards were reformed, perhaps students could get their desired degrees in less time for less money by only taking classes that relate to their major.
But instead of reforming either high school or college, Obama's just trying to effectively make a 2 year degree mandatory in much the same way that a high school diploma is effectively mandatory. Young Americans with no interest in higher education will now have to wait another 2 years to start working. Will the slightly increased earning potential outweight the 2 years of opportunity costs when they could have been learning applicable skills on the job and earning money? What is the long-term vision here? Does everyone want a college education? Why should everyone need one?