Posted on 10/27/2009 7:44:17 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Marcus A. Winters says we should “send more students to college.” He is responding, in part, to my NR piece making the opposite case. My argument is that when 40 percent of college students fail to graduate in six years, and when about a quarter of employed college graduates have jobs that don’t require degrees, it’s obvious we’re pushing too many kids into higher education.
Winters essentially (though not explicitly) concedes that now is not the time to ship more kids off to postsecondary institutions. He notes Charles Murray’s documentation of the fact that lots of today’s high-school graduates are not ready for college-level work. Winters disagrees, however, when Murray says there is very little we can do to change this.
I also objected when I reviewed Murray’s Real Education. I pointed out some research showing that high-quality teachers can improve student outcomes, suggesting that we can make a little bit of progress. Winters takes this line of thought much farther, making essentially an anti-Murray case: Schools are so powerful that, with the right reforms, they can significantly narrow, or even close, achievement gaps between various racial and income groups. He points to a study of New York City charter schools — which found that charter schools increase scores significantly relative to New York City public schools — as well as to the aforementioned teacher-quality research. Reforms like these, he implies, will lift almost everyone above the college-ready threshold, thus eliminating the ability-based objection to sending all high-school graduates to college.
Inner-city charter schools and teacher-quality initiatives are promising and deserve greater implementation, but I’m highly skeptical that they will prove to be the panacea Winters is looking for. In the past few decades, there have been countless initially promising solutions to this problem, none of which ended up doing much to help. I’d be surprised, albeit delighted, if these reforms more than marginally increased the proportion of high-school graduates who are college-ready. And that’s assuming teachers’ unions don’t kill them before they’re implemented.
The New York City study in particular isn’t as promising as Winters makes it out to be. For one thing, it involved exactly the kind of students that even Murray admits can benefit from better education: inner-city kids stuck in truly awful schools. What about all the kids who go to schools that appear perfectly fine, but who still aren’t college-ready when they graduate?
On the easy standardized-test questions Murray highlights, one of which Winters quotes, about half of eighth-graders don’t know the answers. Certainly, fewer than half of American children go to schools so bad that they’d be radically better off in charter schools. Winters seems unwilling to believe so many people could be so dull; I appreciate Winters’s faith that virtually all of humanity can learn complicated academic material, but I’m afraid I don’t share it.
Further, all the kids in the study had parents who cared enough to apply to charter schools (the control-group public-school kids had applied to charter schools but were denied by lottery). The change from a terrible public school to a charter school might not have as big an effect for kids whose parents don’t pressure them to take advantage of the new opportunities. Not to mention that one benefit of charter schools is that students get away from poorly behaved peers. If the program expanded so that everyone went to charter schools, these bad apples would come along with the others, and this advantage would weaken.
And even if all these studies’ results hold true across the board, and even if all levels of government work together to implement the reforms Winters envisions, it will be years before we see significant results. Only then can this analysis influence our policies regarding sending more kids to college. Until that point, we’re stuck figuring out what to do with the kids who graduate from the secondary schools we have now — and for many of those kids, college isn’t working.
Winters argues that in addition to being able to get more kids into college, we need to. Why? Because, he says, our economy has a strong, unmet demand for educated workers. He uses as evidence the fact that the “college wage premium” (the degree to which college graduates out-earn high-school graduates) has increased over the past few decades. The economic logic seems sound — if the price is going up and the supply is staying about the same, the demand is probably increasing. From this, it follows that if we can use public policy to increase the supply of college-educated workers, we should seriously consider doing so.
But if there’s such a high demand for college-educated workers, then why, even before the economy crashed, were 25 percent of college graduates in their 20s working at jobs that didn’t require degrees? (The proportion of graduates who utilize their degrees rises, by a few percentage points, until about age 32, but levels off thereafter.) As I pointed out in NR, people who graduate but don’t utilize their degrees get essentially no “college wage premium,” especially once you factor in the debt they’ve accrued and the years of work they missed while attending college.
A big part of the reason is that “college-educated workers” are not interchangeable. The college wage premium, and fluctuations therein, vary substantially by field of study. In other words, the economy doesn’t need more generic college graduates — and in fact refuses to hire many of them. Rather, it needs highly capable people in certain fields. It would probably be better to encourage students acquiring useless majors to switch to these lucrative fields than to send more kids to college across the board.
After all, when you send more kids to college, you’re scraping closer to the bottom of the college-eligibility barrel. The new kids will be less able and motivated, on average, than the ones who are already in college — and thus even more likely to drop out before finishing and to wind up in jobs that don’t utilize their degrees if they do finish.
Winters also takes the existence of the college wage premium to mean that students “acquir[e] knowledge and skills that employers prize.” This is fair enough when it comes to chemists and engineers; in cases such as these, a degree certifies that the student has learned a lot about the specific field in which he’ll work. But when it comes to less demanding fields, employers often use a degree as a simple screening mechanism: They figure that if an applicant is smart enough to graduate, he’s smart enough to learn the job. This is why, on career websites such as Monster.com, job-seekers frequently come across listings that require four-year degrees but do not mention specific majors. (I’m doubtful that the “social skills” Winters says people learn in college are strong enough to justify employers’ completely refusing to consider non-grads.) In these cases, certification programs could replace degrees, saving students time and money.
As I said in my NR piece, today’s youth are trapped in a lengthy, expensive weeding-out process. About 60 percent of them attempt college; of these, about 40 percent fail to graduate within six years; of those who do graduate and find jobs, about a quarter work in non-degree-utilizing positions. If Winters’s proposal — reforms in secondary education that, unlike most previous reforms in secondary education, actually work — is carried out, that will significantly alter this landscape. I’m hoping for that day to come, but until it does, too many kids are going to college.
— Robert VerBruggen, an NR associate editor, runs the Phi Beta Cons blog.
I was 38 when I entered college. One of my English lit instructors was also a friend. She told me that about 30% of her English 101 students were reading at a grade school level. It doesn’t make sense!
I went to an Ivy and almost everyone I knew including myself has done exactly that. Personally, I would have preferred to be a cook instead of a bus boy.
But that was the early 80's when jobs were really tough to find, much as it is now.
Maybe they did not do that in the last decade.
“Maybe they did not do that in the last decade.”
####
And many even before that.
The current usurper occupying the White House, and his diseased Administration, is Example One.
I’d love to see Zero attempt to drive a simple 10D nail into a 2X4.
I’ve done that and it is a great help to have that kind of experience but nowdays the businesses that would hire for those types of jobs are either out of business because of taxes, union nepotism or hiring illegals because they are cheaper. Hell, the 18-30 year old unemployment is at record levels and it’s not because they are lazy or not looking. Trying to get a college degree on your dime and mine seems to be one of the few options for a lot of these people and even at that if they are white males they are a lot less likely to receive any aid. Many of the adult male students I have in classes struggle along with 1 or more low-paying jobs to try to live and finance an education while females and minorities (include illegals) receive the bulk of any aid.
I think that’s it. People need to make a living and this is a credentialed society. Yes, it’s true there are many people in college that shouldn’t be there, but that’s what it takes to make a living wage.
Higher education isn’t all about “job skills”. It is also strongly related to producing a “whole man”. (OK, OK, whole woman too.) Isn’t it better for society in general to have an educated population? Isn’t a good education better than a blank stare at a party?
Yes, they need trainig for jobs that exist only in China and India. Until we address the "outsourcing problem", there is little need for those skills.
I know more people who didn’t go to college that I would consider “whole men” than those who did. You can get a very good “real life” education in the real world.
Is college necessary for some careers, yes. It sure isn’t necessary to be an intelligent person.
I have a supurb wood shop AND metal shop in my basement. My 10 & 12 year old boys know how to operate a 12 X 36 metal lathe and a vertical milling machine. Their interest in that shop is climbing now becuase they have diverse hobbies that need "stuff" not available elsewhere.
Why oh why do people think that government schools are a solution for anything? Take the initiative: "do it" yourself.
Intelligence and "learning" are completely separate concepts. Schools have labs and "learning centers" that cannot be easily emulated at home on a small budget. It really depends on one's desires learning scope. My interests are very diverse.
Limit your interests, sure enough, you don't need a higher education.
Your correct, being I failed to include that the economic collapse has forced parents to send students to local Community Colleges and colleges/universities because they are cheaper in price (in-state tuition v. non-state, etc.), expediency variables, etc.
But with the widespread cheating and grade inflation, they are fudging the completion requirements instead.
We have now created a society where diversity trumps excellence and where well read and spoken Black kids are beaten and ridiculed by their so called peers for "actin white"
This is what happens when you have a government run union led monopoly (you got the same results from Soviet agriculture or the UK NHS)
I used to teach in public schools and now teach on the undergraduate level so I can see just what your friend is talking about.
Well, that is certainly true. Those trades need people, but for reasons I can't understand nobody wants to work anymore.
I'll tell you an interesting story. I went into a bar near the University of Kentucky, and struck up a conversation with a fellow who owned and operated a company that made oak table tops. Following on a smart remark I made, the fellow went into a ti-rage in esoteric physics. The owner of the bar wheeled out a damn blackboard for him to use during what became a lecture. It turns out that he held, honestly, three PhDs: Two in physics, and one in math!
Later he told me that he loves to make simple things, the smell of a woodworking shop, and a serious lecture in physics!
A good education supplements life, regardless of your chosen way to make a living.
(This is a true story)
“A big part of the reason is that “college-educated workers” are not interchangeable. The college wage premium, and fluctuations therein, vary substantially by field of study. In other words, the economy doesn’t need more generic college graduates — and in fact refuses to hire many of them. Rather, it needs highly capable people in certain fields. It would probably be better to encourage students acquiring useless majors to switch to these lucrative fields than to send more kids to college across the board.”
Very good point.
The major matters more than the school.
The College wage premium varies.
Not every student is ready for College. One way to find out is to try to take the ‘core courses’ through some other way.
“I’m in California too in a very ‘prestigious’ school district and while there is no shortage of AP and Honor’s classes, my middle of the road 10th grader doesn’t have wood shop anymore. Sad really, but I told him, instead of going to college and paying for the tuition, which even at CSUN will run $20K, I would pay for him to start a business. He will need to write the business plan as if I were an investor. His school actually has an entrepreneurial after school club where kids can learn this aspect of business. It’s hands on, but not for credit which is fine because he’s not going to college! And we don’t care! I already put two through expensive colleges and one is working two minimum wage jobs and interning for free.
We all need to rethink the college route for kids. “
I agree.
I’m thinking, tho, of HVAC and so forth. The air conditioning companies here in LA are dying for good help, but people are not going into that field. The kids who are floundering in high school because they see no reason to learn higher math and academics would love to be working with their hands, I think.
“There are millions of college graduates who are grasping at straws andd ready to take any job, even at minimum wage. I can show you some who would be better off now had they spent their college years working in a convenience store or a fast food place.”
...my wife teaches part time at the local state university...straight cash; no benefits...with 15,000 new PhDs being cranked out every May the schools have the upper hand....we are debt free and have no mortgage; so her salary is extra cushion money....many of the part-time teachers are not so lucky....they get paid about $8.00 an hour when you figure class preparation time and grading papers on week ends....plus they have huge student loans that will cripple them for years to come...the manager at the local McDonald’s makes more and dresses better.
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