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 ...
Which is why the NEA is against education.
yes we did. see my post #39.
You have certainly set the bar high.
My kid skipped his last semester at HS and earned a Master's degree, and makes more money that I. Both my kids have Master's degrees and both make more money than I.
Hooray!
Same for us Architects, too. I argued aginst having to take the BS courses to no avail.
"How do you tell a Socialist:- It's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an Anti-Socialist someone who understands Marx and Lenin" -Ronald Reagan
NOTE: American(and world) academia requires a cursory attention to Marx, but denies a proper understanding of Marx.. Lenin.. Hegel.. Stalin.. Mao.. And IT WORKS.. The American college student has no idea that the Social Security Act is in fact rock hard Socialism completely.. Not LIKE socialism, IT IS PURE SOCIALISM.. But worse they have NO IDEA that socialism is Slavery by Givernment.. Pure slavery, indentured servitude..
I can quite honestly say, speaking for myself, that most of what I've learned in that way has simply come from OJT, self-education, post graduate/professional career enhancement type of stuff, or simply online learning. Some was also motivational stuff such as Stephen Covey, Anthony Robbins, etc., etc. I don't buy into any particular overall philosophy there, but I dare say that a couple of hours of that type of stuff or professional seminars, are worth weeks, or semesters even, worth of time spent in liberal arts classroom/study.
I.e., based on my experiences, including myself, relatives, friends, others, etc., the "bang for the buck" for engineering, business, or other specifically disciplined coursework in areas of specific learning by far and away exceed that of liberal arts efficiencies in time-v.-benefit!
As well, I couldn't read quickly or write well at all throughout high school and even into college. But today I do it professionally and am haled for it in my genre.
I've taken my analytical abilities and put them to pen in ways that people understand. I know many people with poor-to-fair literary skills in HS or college that learned later on in life.
On the flip side, I rarely see and know precious few people that had great reading/writing skills that developed their critical thinking skills to extents where they are haled as great thinkers, good polemicists, etc. In fact, the field of players in liberalism should be a great guide and testimony to that.
Many write very well but have the analytical capacities of a dead giraffe. Lawyers are full of that. Ergo, so are our politicians. They can talk their way out of anything, or into anything for that matter, but when one parses their rantings, they are found wanting.
The internet and the public library--not to mention bookstores--have all the info I need on any subject. Much cheaper, too. The degree is just a piece of paper. If people need/want it, that's their problem. I'm extremely grateful to have not wasted my time or money on it.
You picked out a salient point. None of my courses (other than math-related) offered skills (other than writing and analysis) that were directly relevant, and even those skills were probably mine before college.
All of my day-to-day work consists of skills which I taught myself either via reading or the more usual OJT.
However, unlike high school whch teaches dependency on external rewards, I realized in college that no one but me cared about my progress and if I wanted anything, I'd better get my own butt in gear. No one was going to hold my hand and help me get it unless I showed initiative and used the resources available and even in many cases to find my own resources when none were offered.
She's an anatomical illustrator for medical mags and hospitals.
Education always means something. Schooling, not so much.
Please explain this to me. Just about everyone here with a degree acknowledges that they could do their job without their degree, so why do corporations insist on degrees? Is it a pedigree? A guarantee of minimum skills?
YES
And add Steve Jobs to the list of college dropout CEOs. College schmollege.
hell, all five of the main guys involved with Microsoft and Apple.
now, I'm not anti-college, as I've noted in my other posts.
Good point, many colleges have certificate programs that prepare students for a specific job. Welding, truck driving, and mechanic programs come to mind; also programs for office clerical, preschool teaching, and non-medical care givers, and aides for elderly. We think of programs like this as trade school material, but many community colleges and even smaller University's are offering job specific education.
These programs are a blessing for students who may not have been able to pass some subjects required for a high school diploma, yet will be able to hold a decent job in a field that interests them after completion of this type of study.
[[Anyone who uses the term, "I was like..." in place of "I said..." should not be allowed to go to college. In fact, they should not be allowed to go to any school.]]
How about if they say....."You see what I'm saying" six times in the same sentence? lol
Try St. Thomas. Engineers like him because his style is formal, logical, profound and mercifully succinct, unlike the liberal arts crap that most people experience in college.
This is where "liberal arts" came from and where the term "scholasticism" originated. This is what liberal arts should be.
More liberal "we don't want to hurt their self steem" nonsense.
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