Last week, many of my friends shared this article from Robert Reich, a critique of the current “college for all” movement that’s forced millions of students into post-college (and for many lifelong) debt to private universities and for-profit banks in the form of loans. From him:
The biggest absurdity is that a four-year college degree has become the only gateway into the American middle class. But not every young person is suited to four years of college. They may be bright and ambitious but they won’t get much out of it. They’d rather be doing something else, like making money or painting murals. They feel compelled to go to college because they’ve been told over and over that a college degree is necessary. Yet if they start college and then drop out, they feel like total failures. Even if they get the degree, they’re stuck with a huge bill — and may be paying down their student debt for years.
I agree with most of the article. Much of the piece is centered on middle to upper-class white parents insofar as some of the social indicators are concerned. I can see how the pressure to push everyone to college only exacerbates inequity, because all the first and second generation college grads I know always feel a responsibility to give back to their families, an added burden that only makes middle-class status even more unattainable. Even when I went to college all those years ago ahem, people in those circles were talking about MBAs and masters degrees as the true barometer for gaining entry into the middle class.
Now that I’m 10 years deep into teaching, I think getting everyone through college as it currently exists is a horrible idea.
Yet, whenever someone brings up the idea of vocational schools and training, I tend to wince, not because vocational schools are somehow lesser than four-year colleges, but because the idea usually comes from teachers and school staff that want to dump troublesome kids somewhere, anywhere really. A few years ago, I found liberals who brought up vocational training to be, at best, myopic. Not much has changed.
Whenever we bring up vocational schooling, we should always keep in mind who folks have in mind when they say these things. Do we have vocational schools distributed across New Rochelle and Scarsdale as well as Harlem and the Lower East Side? Will we bus rich kids from the suburbs into those schools if there are no spaces available for vocational schools in the suburbs? And how does that affect the current Common Core agenda of “college and career ready?” Who’s going to college? Who has legacy? Who’s getting a career? Who’s going to have to go to college to get that career? What careers are favored and valued in our society? Who sets the prototype for what those careers would look like? Who has the access to the types of careers that are sustainable, professional, and valuable to our society?
These questions surely complicate Robert Reich’s piece, and necessarily so.
He says that we continue to force kids through a funnel called the four-year college track, but, some of our kids are forced down school-to-prison pipeline when they’re not forced down the four-year track. I would rather have high-schoolers choose their own path, and equip them with the skills to thrive regardless of what they choose. With wealth being one of the best (if not the best) predictors of SAT / ACT scores, one has to pay close attention to the ways in which we perpetuate systemic inequity by genuflecting to the current American capitalist zeitgeist.
In the middle of ripping apart the idea that everyone has to go to college, we should pay close attention to who does or doesn’t have to go to college and whether those jobs that do or don’t require college will be there for those with the least access points. Until then, my kids will keep hearing “college.”
p.s. – This essay on Kevin Carey’s book The End of College written by Audrey Watters and Sara Goldrick-Rab is so, so good.
I’m one who rails mightily against the college for all mentality, mostly because I’m married to a man who went the trade route and am the daughter to a man who went the military route. I think both are very intelligent and thoughtful people. I also think that had circumstances been different for both, they may have very well chosen the college path. For my dad in particular, I think he would have been a brilliant attorney.I also speak to the experience of my own three children, all graduated now from high school and all who chose not to attend college straight out of high school. That was my own experience as well. I had to live life outside of high school (which included getting married and having two kids) before making the decision to return to school.
All that being said, I know that I speak from a place of white privilege. I am also aware that it is because of that privilege that my kids could have chosen the college path and would have been praised for it. Likewise, when I speak to other (mostly) white parents about the choices my kids made, I sense they think my husband and I have failed in some way because not choosing college is for the other and is perfectly acceptable for the other, but not for white, middle to upper class kids.
In one of the school districts I now work with, they have been struck by a string of suicides. A student wrote a letter to the paper outlining the stress she feels, stress that has been created by family, peers, and the school system. There is no doubt in my mind that if someone were to suggest that instead of focusing on getting these students into the Ivies that perhaps we should encourage them to find their passions, which may include doing vocational school, or going to a junior college, or something not as prestigious, there would be very little community support.
I want ALL kids to have the luxury of finding what drives them without any stigma attached, but recognizing that because of the system we live in, for some it truly is a luxury to be able to find oneself.
I really wanted to know exactly what was meant by “college and career ready”. Eventually I came across a New York education department document which said in effect “capable of benefiting from any form of higher or further education, including part time day release classes”, and graduating from High School should put one in such a position. I somehow think that the CCSS sees it as 4 year full-time degree courses only, hence the muddle.
My experience in teaching in an institute of higher education is that a very large proportion of the students don’t know why they are there, don’t know why they chose the subject they chose, and don’t know what they are going to do afterwards, and that is more than ten tears ago in the UK.
I would suggest that any kid that is being pressurized into taking a 4yr degree should find out three things:
1. What is the dropout rate?
2. What is the final (after 6 years) graduation rate?
2. How many graduates get a “proper” job within 2 years of graduation?
In my more cynical moments I am thinking that getting people to pay to stay off the unemployment register does wonders for the unemployment statistics !
I agree with you entirely.
One other thing I think Reich gets wrong is believing that skills determine economic outcomes, not just individually, but socially. Germany’s median wage is a product of a whole host of things – it is not produced solely by it’s education system. It has to do with it’s position in the global economy, power relations between workers and corporations, monetary policy, etc. I agree that “Young people need an alternative” but that needs to be focused as much on what happens after school as before. No amount of training will overcome racism, no amount of training will produce new jobs, no amount of training will push wages up.
It would be nice if education could fix systematic structural inequalities without struggle. But it won’t, and believing so is a distraction from addressing those inequalities head on.
Which isn’t to say educational inequalities shouldn’t be addressed too. These things aren’t in tension. They are mutually reinforcing. But the skills theory should burn in a fire.
Author
Comment of the year thus far!
Your questioning of the article resonated with my thoughts on college as a special educator. It feels that the college only option further keeps students with disabilities out…especially those who have significant cognitive differences compared to their peers.
Author
Students with special needs are definitely left out of this, too.
I think it is critically important who is making the decision to not go to college, when they are making it, and to some degree, why they are. It is absolutely true that some students can have excellent careers in trades. But, as you point out, too many times, the real decision that is getting made is “not college”, and it is made in early grades and not by the student or parent.
I think a better way to put it in early years is preparing students so they have choices. Then, in high school, let them pick a career path and go where appropriate for that career.
I’ve had this argument many times over the years. Our lack of respect as a culture for “blue-collar” work is wrong-headed. My vocational students are not less than– they’re just headed in a different direction. And some of them (such as my future welders) will be better paid and have more mobility than many of my college-bound folks. Almost all of them are pursuing the path they want to follow– more so than many of my college-bound students who are headed to college because they’ve heard that’s what they’re supposed to do next.
Author
Thanks for the insight here, Peter. Makes a lot of sense.
Since I teach primarily middle grades, in a suburban district, I like to focus on the possibilities in vocational ed. Not everyone understands that it’s possible to do a challenging vocational program, and then pursue college. In my one class of seniors, I’ve taught welders; cosmetology, pastry, and graphic design students, and certified network engineers. Almost all of them have chosen to attend college, mostly for business programs, but they all know they have completed a certification program and can supplement their income or even hop directly into the workplace whenever they need or want to.
On the negative side, our district (among many) has discontinued shop and “home ec” classes where students often discovered a talent or love for some of the more hands-on skills. So now it’s a huge leap of faith for a 10th grader to decide to give up 1/2 of their electives to jump into a vocational program like auto repair, carpentry or HVAC, or culinary arts.
This post on college and career readiness resonates with me, especially the questions you pose:
Who’s going to college? Who has legacy? Who’s getting a career? Who’s going to have to go to college to get that career? What careers are favored and valued in our society? Who sets the prototype for what those careers would look like? Who has the access to the types of careers that are sustainable, professional, and valuable to our society?
While I acknowledge that attending a 4–year university straight out of high school is definitely not for everyone, I feel we have to be really careful about the implications of making such a statement to students. Who, exactly, should and should not go to college? Who should make this decision, and when?
I get extremely frustrated when I hear my colleagues talking about how “our demographic is blue-collar” and “our community is working class,” as if this is a reason our students should not be pushed to aim to do more with their lives, as if maintaining the status quo is our purpose as educators.
A few weeks ago, I was in conversation about this topic with a group of teachers. One said, “We’re up against their culture. If they’re told their whole lives that school doesn’t matter and they should just get pregnant and start a family, what can I do to change that?” I promptly bounced the question right back to her: “What CAN you do to change that?” By the way, I didn’t ask this teacher for specifics, but I assume that by “their culture” she meant the school’s Latino population, which makes up about 60% of our student body. This is the same teacher, by the way, who explained to me—without irony—that a student’s behavioral problems were due to his “black mentality.”
The biggest issue that I see in my school community, and with the “college isn’t for everyone” argument overall, is that its proponents aren’t aware of the institutionalized racism that is coloring their rationale. I think many people honestly don’t realize that failing to encourage all students to reach their full potential will lead to a perpetuation of the current socioeconomic divisions that currently plague our society and set up our students for a cycle of adversity and inequality.
So while I know in my heart that college isn’t for everyone, I will never stop pushing my students to reach further, to dream bigger, to aim for what they never thought possible. If that dream ends up being something other than college, that’s fine. But I refuse to be the one to tell them to stop dreaming.
Alicia Pike-Green,
Amen.
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