Nothing for Something

[marmar]

from the American Prospect:




Nothing for Something
Does pushing higher education for everyone actually make it tougher for poor students to enter the middle class?

Monica Potts | January 19, 2011 | web only


For the Obama administration, expanding access to college is necessary to stop America from falling behind in the global economy. "Lifting graduation rates. Preparing our graduates to succeed in this economy. Making college affordable. That's how we'll put a higher education within reach for anyone who wants it," the president said in an August speech.

But when talking about expanding access to college and increasing the number of Americans with degrees, it's useful to ask, to paraphrase another president: "Is our children learning?" According to a new study by two sociologists, the answer for students enrolled in college is "No, not really." The researchers -- Richard Arum, professor of sociology and education at New York University, and Josipa Roksa, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia -- tested 2,300 students enrolled in four-year colleges and universities and found they didn't do much better on measures of critical and analytic reasoning after four years than when they started.

Students are told that they need transferable critical-thinking skills to compete in the global workforce and weather technological shifts, and an increasing number of employers now require a degree or some other type of certification for entry into a field. But if the point is to equip students with the skills to be global "innovators," then according to this research, we're failing.

Moreover, by requiring college courses in trades like heating and air installation and massage therapy that were once learned through an apprenticeship, students -- especially poor students -- end up wasting a lot of money and taking time out of their careers for little added benefit. If traditional colleges and universities aren't teaching all students generalized, high-level skills that enable them to adapt to whatever working environment they find themselves in, then it's hard to see what the value of obtaining a college degree is. We either need to start making sure all students leave college with those skills, or re-evaluate why it's important for some career-oriented programs to be part of a college course and not an on-the-job training program. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=nothing_for_something

[yurbud]

1. in a lot of fields, they don't want to take the time and money to apprentice someone

they'd prefer they get it at a voc ed program at a CC or one of those nasty private tech schools.