More Americans are going to college than ever before, but students face unprecedented challenges. Over 44 million Americans collectively hold more than $1.4 trillion in student loan debt and only 54.8 percent of students graduate in six years. This means that millions of Americans are taking on thousands of dollars in debt without a diploma to show for it.
Even though he dropped out of college himself, Bill Gates says that college dropout rates need to be addressed. He told students, ‘The U.S. has the highest college dropout rate. We’re number one in terms of the number of people who start college but we’re like number 20 in terms of the number of people who finish college.’" …
The answer here is that fewer should start college, not that more should graduate. Bill Gates is a smart guy and should be able to figure this out from the stats above.
The push for everyone to go to college is harming people. We need more respect for trade schools and apprenticeships and other paths to making a living.
Meaning admit fewer students from low income families, since running out of money appears to be a major factor in failing to complete college?
Employers are demanding more college education. There is credential creep, where employers ask for bachelor’s degrees even if there is no job need for specific nor general skills and knowledge that one learns and practices while studying for a bachelor’s degree. There is also upward creep of first professional degrees, where a higher level of education is expected now than in the past. Recent examples include occupational therapy no longer being a bachelor’s degree program (now a post-bachelor’s professional program), accounting requiring five years of college course work, and the trend to prefer nurses with bachelor’s instead of associates degrees. Earlier examples include law, where it used to be possible to earn a law degree without first earning a bachelor’s degree.
So if these trends cannot be reversed, the pressure on high school graduates to seek college education in order to avoid losing in the job market will continue, as will the decline in opportunities for those without a college education.
Bill Gates needs to stay out of and stop worrying about education. It looks as if he’s all set! He was instrumental in brining U.S. public school students the Common Core standards which surely have led to drop out rates and kids tracking out of careers involving a math background. This is especially true for the students who had CC thrown at them during their mid-school career.
The whole education system in this country is pretty screwed up. Germany has it absolutely right with their college and technical track system. There seems to be this notion in the US that one HAS to go to college to be successful and HAS to have a white-collar job to be successful. Plenty of people seem to think trades are beneath them.
There are many things Germany does well (including good jobs for non-university-graduates and education/training leading to such jobs), but one of the trade-offs is that career decisions are made in middle school, since the type of high school one attends is strongly associated with the type of career one will be preparing for.
The preference for white collar jobs (even when there were better-paying blue collar jobs that were readily available) in the US was noted by Vance Packard in his 1959 book The Status Seekers, so that is not new. Of course, there has been credential creep in white collar jobs since then (see reply #2). Good-paying blue collar jobs also tend to require more skills/education/training than before.
@ucbalumnus what are your thoughts on improvements that could be made, or do you think the current system is perfect? I am curious based on your responses to mine and compmom’s comments.
Obviously, it is not perfect. But it may require a cultural shift in many areas (e.g. the longstanding “white collar is always better than blue collar” attitude, the employers’ credential creep requirements, the growth in occupational licensing, etc.). As long as the lack of a bachelor’s degree is devalued by employers even for jobs not requiring the skills and knowledge of such, and skilled blue collar jobs are disdained by most Americans, there will be the push for college in order to avoid being left behind.
As it is now, access to college and its effects on social class mobility are heavily correlated to parental financial resources; simply restricting access without the cultural shift that makes non-college-based career options more viable and attractive would likely reduce intergenerational social class mobility even further. That would be an undesirable thing both economically (talent born into poor families will be lost) and socially (if the lower classes do not see much possibility of upward mobility within the system, they may support extremists, revolutionaries, etc. who promise the sky by overthrowing the system).
How many upper middle class parents with bachelor’s degrees would be ok with their own kids choosing paths not leading to a bachelor’s degree after high school graduation, even if they led to well paid professions in the skilled trades and such?
@ucbalumnus It absolutely is an image/cultural thing. When all kids hear about at their high schools and in their homes is “college, college, college”, anything other is unthinkable. The trades are DESPERATE for qualified people, whether through trade schools or apprenticeships. We need talented people to build houses, fix machinery, and keep the nuts and bolts of our world running.
re-institute shop/trade classes at high schools: kids who are exposed to metalwork, woodwork, auto shop, etc. may find they like it and have an aptitude for it. Some will argue that some school district offer these types of classes at off-campus locations - if a kid can’t get there, however, they do him or her no good;
have trade schools show up at “career nights”, and really show the economics of learning a trade. A skilled, hardworking tradesperson can end up making a nice living without going $200,000 into debt. Can you say “employable”?
ucbalumnus I am well aware of the complex cultural and economic factors at work. I stand by my original post, which suggested a larger shift in our society as a whole.
Low income is not always the determining factor since talent (and early training in programs that prepare low income students for higher achievement) can win them spots with financial aid. More relevant is the lack of quality in earlier stages of education.
I have been encouraging one of mine to just say no. We’ll see.
Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Paul Allen and Larry Ellison also dropped out of college."
This is the LEAST average bunch of people to use as the poster boys of college dropouts. All started what became some of the largest companies in the world while in college. Not the same group that is being referred to as a standard college dropout.
I have hired many IT pros that do not have college degrees. Its almost rare if an applicant does have a degree for IT operational roles. Its more common on the application development side but even there the company really only cares that you can code and can work with a team. Junior level applicants on the operations side without degrees still easily make $60+ to start with senior staff with 10+ years making over $100k.
The biggest benefit seen from those that have a degree and/or military experience is their professionalism and interpersonal skills. They often work better in teams and are more comfortable/familiar with taking direction. Its not even about book smarts or a specific type of knowledge obtained. Often just a maturity level and professionalism. The’ve proven they can start and finish something over time. Be reliable, show up, etc.
I agree with ucb about the need for increasing skills that people need for employers who require more reading and writing and math skills. But this should be happening at the secondary school level, and even before that.
Instead we have a melange of for-profits and mediocre private colleges and a misuse of community colleges. (I am all for not just 2 year degrees for vocations but also college tracking for the lower income smart kids, but not the bottom quarter of HS grads, as virtually none of these will ever get a 4 year degree).
It is not the kids who get degrees at selective LACs who have tons of debt, even if that degree cost 250K. They get jobs, good jobs. It is thousands who owe 10K, 20K, 30K for 6 months or a year wasted in ‘colleges’ advertised on TV. And even for the ones who graduate from private colleges with 20% 4-year grad rates or directionals with SAT medians of 900, what jobs will they get? What companies are recruiting on their campuses?