Which means if a kid mistakenly passes on the college route around age 15, it’s incredibly difficult for him or her to catch up later. What you describe is much more the European system, which IMO reduces social mobility.
I agree there are real problems with our current, bloated and largely ineffective system, but in the modern world there’s no reason not to enforce some standard academic rigor through high school.
Not necessarily. We could have it so that a kid who changes his mind could switch to community college and there do his prerequisites to go on to senior college for his BS.
As it stands, a student who today drops out at 16 continues to have the option of getting his GED, going to community college to demonstrate his ability to operate in a college environment, and then applying to a 4-year school.