Posted on 05/30/2006 7:02:57 AM PDT by gallaxyglue
By KAREN W. ARENSON Published: May 30, 2006 It is a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland idea. If you do not finish high school, head straight for college. Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times ...But many colleges — public and private, two-year and four-year — will accept students who have not graduated from high school or earned equivalency degrees...In New York, the issue flared in a budget battle this spring. There are nearly 400,000 students like Ms. Pointer nationwide, accounting for 2 percent of all college students, 3 percent at community colleges and 4 percent at commercial, or profit-making, colleges, according to a survey by the United States Education Department in 2003-4. That is up from 1.4 percent of all college students four years earlier....(S)ome educators say even students who could not complete high school should be allowed to attend college. Nowhere is this contradiction more evident than in California. This year, 47,000 high school seniors, about 10 percent of the class, have not passed the exit examinations required to graduate from high school. They can still enroll in many colleges, although they are no longer eligible for state tuition grants. State Senator Deborah Ortiz, Democrat of Sacramento, has proposed legislation to change that. "As long as the opportunity to go to college exists for students without a diploma," Ms. Ortiz said, "qualifying students from poor or low-income families should remain entitled to college financial aid."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Who cares whether they have graduated from high school or not? If the college will take them and if the students are not getting financial aid, I see absolutely no problem with this. I've known people who didn't graduate from high school but went on to college and did fine. One is a successful lawyer I went to law school with. He did get his GED though. He was even an officer in the National Guard. I don't like the idea of giving financial aid for college to lame brains who couldn't even cut it in high school, but a lot of people who drop out though do not drop out because they don't have what it takes to make it. They drop out for other reasons. I'm happy to see people like that go back to school and make something out of their lives.
Ok, like there's this like freshman guy who like goes to Harvard and he's like walking across the campus and he like runs into a senior and like walks up to him and says:
Hey, where's the library at?
And like the senior says, "This is Harvard son. At Harvard we never end our sentences with a preposition."
So, like the freshman says, "Ok. Where's the Library at, a$$#0le?"
It is no longer a place to become a well rounded individual.
(we have arrived at brave new world where classic literature is no longer known)
I started college later than most. I'm 40 now, and am in my third year.
I go to a for-profit technical university, where you would expect the program to be more vocational.
The education is more rounded than I had expected. The required courses for my science degree include English, History, a Foreign Language, Psychology, Literature (classic), and the Public Speaking course in which I'm now participating.
I'm sure that this university is an exception, but schools like this still exist.
That's b/c in HS they teach the same concept for a week and by day 2 everyone with a brain has it yet they keep on dwelling on it. Otherwise the teachers may know what they're doing, but they are about as adept at imparting that subject matter to students as the GOP Senate is to recognizing the border problem. In college they explain it once, if that, and it you blinked, then TFB. They assume that you'll take it upon yourself to get it at some point.
Imagine how much more guickly you learn for topics of actual interest.
"Then again, I'm sure engineers are required to take some real waste-of-time courses to get their degree."
Like the Freudian(sexual) analysis of Shakespeare's sonnets, a government course taught by an Argentine leftist b**ch who thinks Castro and Mao were the greatest leaders ever, a business course taught by an idiot who thinks taxes were the greatest thing ever invented, and socialist indoctrination class disguised as a writing class. This was a smaple of wht engineering/science students had to endure at UT Austin in the 1970's. God only knows what kind os BS classes are required now!
'Fo shizzle
>>Grammar snobs are always the last one's to accept changes in language.
The education is more rounded than I had expected. The required courses for my science degree include English, History, a Foreign Language, Psychology, Literature (classic), and the Public Speaking course in which I'm now participating.
Understand your point(s), but how many of those "required courses" will actually be viewed as beneficial by your employer and which will actually be of benefit to you in what you actually do or will do? Public speaking will help.
As to foreign language(s), psych, and lit., I've taken those courses in the past, and I can quite honestly say, other than for a social fluency in a langauge that doesn't help me on the job or past jobs at all, I don't remember much nor has or would have much of it come in handy.
It's great to know I suppose, but I'm not sure all the time that is spent on it wouldn't be better served simply focusing on the relevant and leaving the learning of those things to people that need them or desire them. Forcing people to "learn French" say, they are simply going to try to get the best grade possible whether that actually entails learning the material or not, and which is often for the short term.
My wife spent a year in France and was fluent socially at one point. Today, she barely remembers the language. Whatever is taught, it should be far more up to the individdual to select the topics than they now can. For example, instead of allowing only one course in poly-sci, why not allow them to replace other "gen ed" coursework with more in order to allow them to develop either a relevant minor or an area of personal interest.
This is a good debate, this thread.
When my kids were in their pre-teens and early teens and riding with me in the car to one place or another, we played a game inwhich they could tell me about anything they thought interesting, and I would be bound to give full attention to their views. All provided, of course, that they never used the crutch, "and duh" and never used the word, "like," even as a simile. In the beginning our conversations were quite brief, as you might expect, but over time those conversations got longer and longer and actually quite interesting and enjoyable. :)
It's all about what papers you possess in the Credentialed Society.
If I knew then what I know now???? I wouldn't have gone to College. I would have taken my 90WPM typing skills, got a job with the government, and I'd be on easy street right now. I worked in offices before going to get my degree, so I had job skills. College added NOTHING to my hirability, except for the fact I was able to say I was a College grad. There's something surreal about that.
We have the same thing, it's called a "Collegiate High School"...however, there were requirements we didn't meet (because of being homeschooled, i.e. having taken the state public school high school testing, etc.) He still had to take the College Placement Test to qualify for dual credit, but not the FCAT (which is the state test.)
The dual credit suited us fine because with the Collegiate High School the student has to stay there all day, as in a regular school,but with just dual enrolling as a homeschooled student, you only have to be on campus for college classes.
http://www.spcollege.edu/spchs/admissions.htm
There are 2 guys like that in my Calculus class.
The guys are frikin brilliant. Both want to be Engineers.
There is hope.
A college education should be for the academic elite. I am sorry, not every body is college material.
Can't argue that. Most people don't have 90 wpm typing skills however. On my best day I might be able to do 70-80 after mistakes and I write professionally. Spell check helps but still figures in the time.
But keep in mind, to date, or thereabouts, a college degree has really been the essential box to be checked unless one started his/her own business. I can tell you as someone that does and has hired, that w/o a college degree, no one would have been considered for most positions that we/I hired.
Education is changing more to reflect the true intent of "education." To date it's also largely been a sham, as we both agree, for one or more reasons, and something that hasn't necessarily produced intelligence, knowledge, or wisdom and certainly not common sense.
Once options develop for post high school, there may be an incredible emphasis shift from teachers to guidance counselors that can show students what the options are as the assortment continues to grow.
"we have arrived at brave new world where classic literature is no longer known"
What do you mean by "brave new world"?
I am one of these non-diplomaed college and law school grads.
I went to a very small private high school. I never could on track there. Every grade was a C or worse. At age 15, I took the SATs. My score was close to 1500. At this point, I dropped out of HS, passed the GED. I took a couple of classes at a local community college and got As.
I enrolled at Tulane when my high school classmates were in their senior year. Best thing that ever happened to me.
This is is really no big deal. High school is a complete waste of time.
I should also mention that my parents were completely non-supportive of my decisions. It was until I graduated law school, that my Dad said he was proud of me.
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