Obama to Call for Better Graduation Rates (60% of Americans to get college degrees)

New York Times ^ | August 9, 2010 | SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

[reaganaut1]

President Obama on Monday will renew his call for the United States to lead the world in college graduation rates by 2020, an ambitious goal that senior administration officials say will require 60 percent of all young Americans to possess a college degree, up from 40 percent today.

The United States gave up its spot as the world leader in college graduation rates about 10 years ago, as students in countries like South Korea, Canada and Russia began to surpass their American counterparts. Now the United States ranks 12th among 36 developed nations; a report by the College Board last month warned that the gap threatens to undermine American competitiveness.

Mr. Obama, who shares that view, used his State of the Union address in January to call for the United States to resume its spot as the world leader in graduation rates. He will travel to Austin, Texas, on Monday to reiterate his education plan in a speech at the University of Texas there.

“We’re flatlined, where other countries have passed us by,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Sunday, during a conference call with reporters to preview the president’s remarks. Mr. Duncan called the 2010 goal “the North Star for all our educational efforts.”

Mr. Obama’s trip to Texas will pair policy with politics; before delivering his education speech, he will headline a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee in Austin. After the speech, he will make a quick trip to Dallas to raise money for Democratic Senate candidates.

And the speech itself will have a political edge; advisers to Mr. Obama say he will use it to remind Americans that, with just a few exceptions, Republicans voted overwhelmingly against legislation adopted by Congress earlier this year to revamp the student loan program

[OCCASparky]

Notice he said “graduation rate”. Notice he DIDN’T say getting an education in a field that would make someone employable. Sorry if I sound paranoid, but it sounds like just another plan to expand leftist indoctrination to an ever-widening audience.

[MrB]

0bama has already stated that he prefers free education and medical care

over “reparations”

because the latter would “let America off the hook”,
and the former would be “ongoing”.

In other words, he likes reparations, and wants them to go on forever, instead of in one lump sum and lose the issue.

Unfortunately for him, his beneficiaries “wanna get paid”, and that means ONE BIG CHECK that they can blow on bling.

[rarestia]

As donozark says: better to stand in line with sheepskin than not. College degrees really only get your foot in the door on the application process, and even then, if you’re going into a field that requires one, a Bachelor’s degree will be overlooked by those with Master’s degrees, etc. It doesn’t matter the subject, it only matters that you have it. This is coming from someone who is “highly over-credentialed.”

I agree with you, reaganaut. College degrees, like citizenship, should NOT be birthrights. My brother is a great example of someone who does not have the right attitude to learn in a collegiate environment, but he’s one heck of a manual laborer; and he doesn’t mind that. More college degrees does NOT mean more jobs; it means more HR depts. and hiring managers have to wade through a larger pool of “qualified” candidates in order to pick the one who “best fits” into the culture at the office.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

The president’s sentiment of a degree for everybody reminds me of the fact that anybody can be a millionaire with play money and/or with Zimbabwe’s currency.

[Texas resident]

Good point. This a whole hidden sector of this country that have been very sucessful without graduating from college. And there some serious losers with multiple college degrees.

Maybe obama should lead by example and show his educational credentials.

All that education at Columbia and Occidental seem to have really helped him.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The purpose of this is to force white kids to bury themselves in student loans (the ONLY kind of debt you can’t escape through personal bankruptcy) for inflated tuition that the universities will use to pay for “scholarships” for black kids.

Obama is also talking about making people with outstanding student loans indentured slaves to the federal government.

How convenient.

[BwanaNdege]

Someone with leadership ability (Sarah, are you there?) needs to listen to what the Education Establishment/Media/Politicians continually ignore and/or cover up.

Read the comments at this Post
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2567125/posts

“Some Firms Struggle to Hire Despite High Unemployment”

America does NOT need any more college graduates. We need more apprentices (no, not the Donald Trump drama queens), more technical school graduates. Yesterday I was watching a cable program aimed at the “red-neck, dirty fingernails” crown. You know, those “hot rodders”. ( /sarc )

The host/instructor was demonstrating how to modify the axles of your jeep to make a “rock crawler”. I was struck by the level of technical expertise, attention to detail and devotion to excellence needed to make these modifications. Someone capable of doing this properly possesses skills not found in 90+% of “college graduates”.

The folks getting all the attention in our culture are those dealing with theories, ideas, speculations that usually cannot be evaluated in a “black or white”, “go-nogo” way. To evaluate their work one must take a “nuanced” view. Like selling the emperor a new set of clothes which can only be seen by the “right sort of people”, probably those with college degrees from an elite university. (again, /sarc)

Burt Rutan, in his excellent critique, “An Engineering look at Man-Caused Global Warming” http://rps3.com/Files/AGW/EngrCritique.AGW-Science.v4.pdf

Says this:

“My focus is on an Engineering Approach – where
data are critical and there are consequences for
being wrong; not the Scientist approach – where a
theory is the product and it can be right or wrong
without repercussions.”

We have too many people, usually well paid and held up as role models, whose work is “where a theory is the product and it can be right or wrong without repercussions.”

If that “red-neck with the dirty fingernails” makes a bad weld, or measures wrong, or selects an inadequate material then the wheels will fall off his jeep. However, we have tolerated “educators”, journalists, movie makers, singers, lawyers & politicians who crank out faulty and even evil theories. Moreover, these folks tend to be the highest paid in our society.

Now that the wheels are falling off our society, our “emperor with no clothes” is calling for more college graduates, more elitists with a sense of entitlement, waving a diploma. No, send us people who can make things, quality things. Productive people, like the farmers who are less than 1% of the US population, yet feed us and a large portion of the world, too.

[Done! The short, fat, grumpy old man has said his peace.]

[RWB Patriot]

In english:

“Pass them whether they’re doing good or not or face my government gun!”

[tbw2]

Why not focus on 60% of Hispanics and blacks getting high school educations first?

[Jeff Chandler]

who can’t write or perform simple math should be driving truck or picking up garbage.

Try taking an LTL P&D run out sometime and you won't be making snide remarks about the intelligence of truck drivers.

[BitWielder1]

Why stop at 60? Declare a college diploma a "right" and start printing.
Everyone gets one. No attendance required.

[Hoosier Catholic Momma]

No joke! My late grandfather was a truck driver for 40 years—most of those years he and my grandmother ran their own trucking company and raised four children on that income. He never graduated high school, but he had more common sense and knowledge through experience than most college grads.

[crusty old prospector]

You forgot Gay, Lesbian, and Transgendered Studies. Let’s just call them the Perverse Sciences.

[justsaynomore]

He’s just trying to get more people on the hook for the gov’t college loans (in the healthcare bill).

[BobP]

...The only reason Progressive Fascists want everyone to go to college is they need more time to try and brain wash the kids to believe their ridiculous Progressive political dogmas

------------------------------

You hit the nail on the head Johnnie - I was waiting! Took till thread 18.

I will say that the jobs are not there anymore for these kids. The real tech stuff is with military contractors and a typical dope smoking student will never get a job in a secure lab. [I guess some will walk around the open shop with a broom sweeping up metal flyings as they wait for lunchtime to toke up.]

So, yea, most of them will flip burgers for a living.

Zer0, the foreign occupier, just keeps proving that he's a jive talking clown.

    Education

[BobP]

...The top Majors many will receive to ‘improve’ grad. rates:

-----------------------

Basket weaving

Physical ed

Finger painting

Sure to make a great Dean's-list grad!

[Seven plus One]

Which will then mean you’ll need grad school to get the skills you once learned in high school.

How many semester hours do typical undergrads burn up re-hashing skills that should have been learned by the eighth grade? Plenty, I'm afraid. English and math skills if neglected until adulthood take much more effort to acquire. Who will be motivated to do this extra work? Everybody? Or who will get a pass? Groups selected by the government? Pretty soon a Master's will be the new H.S. sheepskin. "Hey, that's me in post #7! I'm an M.D., guaranteed!" Real credentials are not cheap and they should never be easy. Fake education is at least as dangerous as fake money. It seems that when everyone is entitled to it, no-one really has it.

[RU88]

To me its just common sense that if you raise college graduation rates from 40 to 60% you will over time diminish the earning potential of a college graduate by 20%.

[kevslisababy]

Over-educated Under-acheivers

[ecomcon]

The only reason Progressive Fascists want everyone to go to college is they need more time to try and brain wash the kids to believe their ridiculous Progressive political dogmas

Plus it means happy days for the teachers unions.