"While nine out of 10 white students routinely get their diplomas within six years, only seven out of 10 black students made it to graduation day in several recent classes. ... The [US] once had the highest graduation rate of any nation. Now it stands 10th. For the first time in American history, there is the risk that the rising gneration will be less educated than the previous one. ... Studies show that more and more poor and nonwhite students aspire to college--but their graduation rates fall far short of their dreams. ... As the minority population grows in the [US], low college-graduation rates become a threat to national prosperity. ... The most selective private schools--Harvard, Yale, and Princeton--show almost no gap between black and white graduation rates. ... With effort and money, the graduation gap can be closed", my emphasis, Evan Thomas and Pat Wingert at Newsweek, 1 March 2010, link: http://www.newsweek.com/id/233843.
What nonsense. Newsweak should compare our current 18-year olds' educational attainments to that of say our new peer group countries, like Mexico. That the "Big Three" graduate NAMs at about the rate of non-NAMs is no surprise. They get the pick of the liter. Our second and third tier colleges admit NAM students who I think have as much business going to college as I do playing in the NBA. College is a waste of money for many, if not most current students. Reduce standards sufficiently and all can graduate. We can make college a "Caucus Race" like that of Alice in Wonderland. Pardon me. That already happened.
3 comments:
Geez... many of these students couldn't graduate from high school if we had reasonably tough standards.
Newsweak? ha!
bring back vocational degrees, technical degrees. don't waste time on college.
hard to believe i'm a liberal arts major, talking like that? there is NO REASON for 90% of college attendees to be there except to limit their presence in the labor force. NONE.
same reason we're still in iraq/afganistan/wherever. nothing here, no jobs, no future, might as well get a government position with good health insurance.
I did 4 years in 3 while holding down full time employment, and it was still a cakewalk. Aside from many of the technical disciplines, most college degrees are of no real value.
When I saw, up close, what is actually going on at the university, I knew the US was in much bigger trouble than anyone imagined; millions of graduates with no real skills, no ability to think cogently, and an appalling sense of their own entitlement isn't exactly a recipe for success.
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