Thread: What if a college education isn't for everyone?

What if a college education isn't for everyone?

Updated 5m ago |
By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY

WATERLOO, Wis. — Debbie Crave once assumed that all of her children would go to college. Then she had kids.

Son Patrick is a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Debbie's alma mater, and plans to one day help manage the family's 1,700-acre, 1,000-cow dairy farm here.

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But Brian, 17, would rather sit atop a tractor than behind a desk. "He's been afraid we might push him" to go to college, his mother says. But her eyes have been opened: "Kids learn differently, and some just aren't college material."

Long before President Obama vowed last year that America will "have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world" by 2020, the premium placed on going to college was firmly embedded in the American psyche.

The case is compelling: With good jobs increasingly requiring more education, college is widely seen as the ticket to personal economic security and to global competitiveness. And the message has gotten through: The percentage of students who went on to college or trade school within a year of high school climbed from 47% in 1973 to 67% in 2007, Census data show.

And yet, there's an undercurrent of concern about a group of students — sometimes called "the forgotten half," a phrase coined 22 years ago by social scientists studying at-risk young people — who, for whatever reason, do not think college is for them. It's expressed by soul-searching parents such as Crave, whose son doesn't thrive in the classroom. It's also expressed increasingly by educators, economists and policy analysts, who question whether it's realistic and responsible to push students into college even if the odds of academic success seem low.

They're swimming against a powerful tide. A small but growing number of states now require all high-schoolers to take a college entrance exam. Philadelphia's mayor opened an office in City Hall last month to help residents get information about how to attain a college degree. Bill Gates, perhaps the world's most famous college dropout, has poured more than $2 billion into programs and scholarships to help more students complete college.

Some concerns about the focus on a college education are being acknowledged.

Obama includes readiness for both college and careers in his discussions of education reform — most recently last weekend, when he announced an overhaul of the No Child Left Behind law. And although the term "college" has long referred to four-year bachelor's degrees, policymakers are broadening the definition to include two-year community college degrees and other credentials earned after high school.

But what's still getting lost, some argue, is that too many students are going to college not because they want to, but because they think they have to.

"We're force-feeding them" the idea that "you must go to college or you'll be a second-class citizen," says Marty Nemko, a California career counselor.

Economic benefits, and more

The debate over college is not new, but today's economic climate has raised the stakes.

Since 2000, the percentage of Americans who believe college is essential to success in today's world has gone from 31% to 55% —"a remarkable change in a fairly short period," according to Public Agenda, which has conducted multiple surveys on the topic.

"There's beginning to be a lot of concern among the American public that ... if you don't get into that upper tier, you're going to struggle your whole life," says Public Agenda's Jean Johnson.

A four-year degree is no guarantee of wealth, of course. About 25% of those with bachelor's degrees earn less than those with two-year degrees, studies by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce have found. But research consistently has shown that, on average, those at the top of higher education's pecking order reap the most benefits, both economically and beyond.

"This is a market for social position, which is why we spend so much on going to Harvard (and) one of the reasons it's hard to get a student excited" about community college, says AnthonyCarnevale, director of the center.

"Class is real, and it has consequences. The position you hold, where you work, really determines your empowerment."

Falling through the cracks

Economists continue to debate the nuances of trend data for jobs and wages. But some argue that college dropout rates alone suggest many students are wasting their time — and money.

Federal data show that fewer than 60% of new students graduate from four-year colleges in six years, and just one in three community college students earn a degree. More than 350,000 students who borrowed for college in 1995 had no degree six years later, according to a 2005 study for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

"It's fine for most kids to go to college, of course, (but) it is not obvious to me that that is the best option for the majority," says Mike Gould, founder of New Futures, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that provides scholarships for low-income students pursuing anything from a four-year degree to a massage-therapy certification. "Some education may be a good thing or it may just be a lot of debt."

The problem, Gould and others say, is that many high schools focus so much on college that low-achieving students fall through the cracks. A Public Agenda report this month raises similar concerns about high school guidance counseling. It follows up on a December survey that concluded most young workers who don't have a college degree "are in their jobs by chance, not by choice," and that guidance toward a career path "is hardly clear and purposeful."

That resonates with Erica McCard of Washington, D.C.

A 2006 high school graduate, McCard held a series of low-skill jobs while dropping in and out of community colleges for two years. Then she found Year Up, a program for recent high school graduates. The program helped her develop professional skills and land an internship on the help desk of a corporate information technology department.

In February, the company hired her full time, and she has been accepted to Trinity University in Washington, where she plans to study business this fall.

"In high school I didn't really apply myself," says McCard, 21, who was brought up by her grandmother before moving into a foster home. No one offered much help for life after high school, either, she says. "I had to find out on my own."

The apprentice model

Debbie Crave and her husband, Charles, feel lucky in that regard.

They enrolled Brian in Wisconsin's Youth Apprenticeship Program, established in 1991 to help high school students explore career options. Brian started by tending newborn calves under the mentorship of his uncle Mark at Crave Brothers Farm and is now also preparing equipment in the farm shop for spring planting.

Over the next year, Brian will take on more responsibilities as he works his way through a checklist of industry skills developed by state agricultural leaders. When he graduates from high school, he'll also receive a certificate confirming he has met those standards.

Brian, who must maintain his grades in other high school classes to stay in the program, says he likes the arrangement because he can "get out of school and still get credit for it."

Steve Leistico, Brian's agriculture sciences teacher at Waterloo High School, says the apprenticeship model "is going to give some direction to Brian."

Apprenticeships have long been popular in Europe, but workforce-oriented high school training is not nearly as common in U.S. schools. One reason is that such programs sound dangerously similar to tracking — sorting students by ability level, a practice repeatedly rejected in U.S. culture, in which the dominant philosophy is that all students should have opportunity to meet their full potential.

If high schools were to advise students that some education beyond high school is not necessary for everyone, "there's a little bit of a concern that ... we're saying a lesser goal is OK for the populations of students who have been historically least well-served by higher education," says Jane Wellman, executive director of Delta Project, which studies higher education spending.

In recent years, male college-going and completion rates have raised concerns. But those least well-served historically are low-income and underrepresented minority students, who are less likely than their peers to pursue two- and four-year degrees, and most at risk of not completing college if they do enroll.

Some evidence suggests, though, that students already are being held to different standards. A recent national survey of high school teachers by ACT Inc., the educational testing company, found 71% agreed "completely" or "a great deal" that high school graduates need the same set of skills and knowledge whether they plan to go to college or enter the workforce, yet 42% said teachers reduce academic expectations for students they perceive as not being college-bound.

Studies released in November by Deloitte, an international consulting firm, suggest another disconnect: A survey of 400 low-income parents found that 89% say it's "extremely" or "very important" that their child goes to college, but just 9% of high school teachers viewed preparing students for college as their most important mission.

Deloitte CEO Barry Salzberg, chairman of the College Summit, which seeks to increase college enrollment rates, says that's misguided. "I think we should measure high schools on their college entrance rate and figure out a way to track performance of high school graduates in college and see how many go beyond one full year of college."

But others say the zeal to increase college-going rates ignores the reality that many students will be in over their heads once they start college.

"College preparation for everyone is a very nice ideal, but we have a very high failure rate," says Northwestern University professor James Rosenbaum, author of Beyond College for All: Career Paths for the Forgotten Half.

"If we don't start letting counselors be candid, we're not going to fix this system."

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I will NOT be encouraging my little ones to go to college. In fact, I'd rather they didn't. All colleges seem to do is crank out nothing but libs. I know plenty of people who have no college and do just fine.