on college

A recent article ( here ) focused on the need for school systems to change their curricula to help students from the youngest ages start preparing for college. The authors stated the need for the college degree and the role of the lower grades in ensuring admission and success in college.

At the same time, I am aware of moves to show that college and its degree is not the end all and be all of education and lifelong success. Scholarships valuing thinking, not rote classroom learning ( like this ) are being offered. Articles like this one from Forbes and this from the National Association of Scholars (a pompous name that deserves its own angry blog post) seem to point to the idea that placing college at the top as the needed rank is not helpful.

And then there is this cartoon ( X ) which I hope loads -- I can't see it on my computer, and the Blowback from it [this site has it X and there are loads of blogs and websites arguing about it]

The bottom line, and here's where I say something controversial, is...

Not every student should go to college. Not every student should be getting a college degree.

Education is, on many levels, elitist. The current democratization of higher ed is cheapening the degrees through a market glut, reducing the standards for reaching the degree, and turning the goal of college not into an experience full of exploration and deeper thinking, but of passing the courses which will fulfill some silly set of requirements and allow the cap and gown.

Maybe I'm being unfair, and maybe this will come back to bite me when my own children can't get in to college, but I think that there is a place for the ivory tower apart from the experiential base of the everyman. Those people who have their paths clearly marked for themselves should be allowed to take non-college courses to further their education where it is needed. A series of life-skills classes, trade/vocational schools and extension courses would help people more than test-prep and grade inflation do. Some people simply know themselves and where they want to be. Others need a way to explore ideas and possibililities. Each has a valid path laid out.

Not everyone wants to sit around and discuss the philosophical implications of things, and not everyone is ready to work at age 18. The notion of a one size fits all educational process ignores that different people are ready to show their value in different ways, and demands that all earlier education be similarly superficial in doing nothing but keeping the goal of college at the forefront.

Yes, some people need college. Some get a lot out of it. Some can parlay it into a job. But others who don't need it may be equally as smart and/or capable. We have to stop pretending that a piece of paper with the letters BS on it is really anything more than that.

UPDATE: (July 14)
The masses have started to catch up with my way of thinking
“Live and Learn: Why We Have College” by Louis Menand in The New Yorker, June 6, 2011
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/06/06/110606crat_atlarge_menand