High School counselors are full of ■■■■■ I’m sure some of them are good.
College isn’t about the first 5 jobs.
Myself and I’m sure most Americans would support subsidized education for low income students who demonstrate academic excellence and are going into professions that are needed, i.e. STEM. What we don’t need to do is pay for the education of C students who want to major in things like Dance, Theater, Art, etc.
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Why is High School not enough?
Uh, I have. You should have kept reading. Just trying to nip the whole “free” discussion in the bud. Looks like it worked.
Good post. Although I disagree that most Americans do realize this. In my experience most Americans have been brainwashed by the marketing forces that promote our current higher education system. Nonetheless regarding your second point, here is a few paragraphs from the second article I posted about how other countries do it:
"The advocates for free or nearly free higher education say, well, other countries do it and their budget is not busted, so why can’t we? It is true that many countries provide higher education that is either free or heavily subsidized. But a great many Americans who want us to emulate them will be shocked and angry when they discover that, if we do emulate them, many who are now planning to go to college either will not get in or will not get beyond the first year.
In most of those countries, the money for college is not given to the student; it is given directly to the institution. The system is heavily regulated. Which university one is admitted to is determined by scores on national exams. The same is true for which program one can get into. The government controls how many slots are available in each professional program at the graduate and post-graduate level. In some countries, many are allowed entry into the first year of college, but the number allowed to go on is much smaller and depends on how well a student does during that first year. In most of the advanced industrial countries, there are very few private institutions and they are widely regarded as inferior to the public ones. Because the government funds the institutions directly, it is in a much better position to control the costs by limiting access and to direct how the money is spent than is the United States government.
Oh, horrors, you say. We don’t want our government deciding how many students will go to college, what the criteria are for getting in, who gets to go to college, what programs will be offered and so on. I predict that, if the U.S. government, as a matter of policy, picks up the tab for higher education in this country, it will be only a matter of time before that is the kind of system we have in this country. That is because budget pressures will force the government to control our out-of-control costs. And that’s the way to do it."
That is a more logical approach of how to do things.
Has there really been any serious movement in any state to reform our education system?
I agree with you here, although the level of support should depend upon the what the level of need is for the desired occupation and the occupations benefit to society. In other words more money would go to the low income student who wants to become a nurse as opposed the the low income student who wants to become a stock broker.
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My daughter has an art degree and has a damn good career. You have seen her work, I’ll leave it at that.
Other daughter has a dance degree and is also on a solid career path. Third daughter is a high school English teacher.
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Not since competency testing for teachers was shot out of the sky that I am aware of.
Actually I appreciate your comment and do understand how what I said can be viewed as offensive, which was not my intent. My statement is in context of our current system, which has numerous problems some of which were discussed in the two links I provided. If I were to redesign our public education system there would be programs during the High School years specifically geared towards a students interests and abilities. One of my biggest issues with our current system is the idea that every student needs 4 years of an academically comprehensive high school education and then after that 4 years of an academically comprehensive college education, especially considering they just had nine years of an .academically comprehensive elementary education. Our higher education system should be much more streamlined and focused on students interests and abilities.
Now regarding our current system I am personally opposed to taxpayers paying for everybody’s college education carte blanche. One of the problems in our current system is that so many people spend that extra four years in college and most don’t even get a job that was related to their major:
That’s the problem most Americans have come to accept an arcane system that takes too long, costs too much. Even the issue of time frame as far as I know has never been challenged. Has anyone ever asked where exactly did this notion of 4 years of high school and another 4 years of college come from? All those extra years do is provide more time to forget most of what you had previously learned.
I didn’t find it offensive, but perhaps I did feel compelled to protest a bit lol. We always stressed that any college degree that was earned in our household had to have at least one eye on career opportunities. The dancer did a double major, with creative writing being the other, the art student did as well with graphic illustration as one of them and the teacher well, that’s all she concentrated on but that is a career in itself. The dancer was writing ad copy for a dance troupe for a couple of years and has moved up to something bigger and better. What I’m getting at is they had a powerful mentoring system between parents and some ridiculously highly educated aunts, uncles and other extended family and friends. Had one or more of them not been so called “college material”, they would still have careers of some sort because they had unconditional support willing to help and guide them regardless of who or what they wanted to be. It’s going to be much harder for kids who don’t have that. Society isn’t going to directly pick up the slack so that leaves the education system as a whole.
It has to start young too. If they don’t have some kind of path, even if it’s not comprehensive, by the second year of high school or so, they are going to be at risk.
Having worked in construction for forty five years, I have seen a big long line of kids (helpers, apprentices etc.) who were definitely not college material, but most of them are doing okay in different trades and a number of them ended up in some trade type school or other. Some are losers which is tragic and probably preventable, one is well on his way to a special forces team in the military, all over the map.
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I’m not against that, but it’s been a disaster in Florida. They can’t pass the damn tests, even some with masters degrees and decades of teaching experience. Hundreds have been fired. Some classes are being taught for entire school years by substitutes and long term substitutes, a lot of them. The company that made the test has been fired by the state as well as several other states. Competency testing sounds great but somebody needs to competency test the damn high brow knotheads who come up with the criteria for the tests. It’s not just Florida, half a dozen states at least are experiencing similar problems.
Nah. That’s important as well for public health careers and HR.
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I strenuously object to education being built around the idea of the consumer.
If its free for you, you are a mooch.
That leaves you out. 
The college of hard knocks is free to all people.
But I do get to pick who gets subsidized based on the economics of the investment. Gender studies will never pay back what has been given.
So?..
