Should Every Student Go to College?

March 22nd, 2010 By: Diane Trim in Articles, Learning Community

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What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?[...]

-Langston Hughes

I read an article in the USA Today recently. The article posed the question, “What if a college education just isn’t for everyone?”

The author wrote about a student in Wis. who isn’t planning on attending college. High school junior Brian Crave is in an apprenticeship program instead – on his family’s own farm. He has morning classes at the high school and spends his afternoons working through an agricultural skills checklist. Instead of going to college, Crave plans to continue milking cows and plowing fields.

As an educator, I go into the classroom believing every student can learn. It’s my job to give students the knowledge and skills they’ll need for any career path and prepare them for higher education.

Meeting with resistance. But, like you, I’ve met with resistance. When I taught in Texas, I had mostly juniors in my English classes. Most of them had passed the then TAAS test (now TAKS). Here was their question: Miss, we passed the TAAS. Why are we here? Don’t we know it all already?

These were kids from low-income backgrounds, with working class values, and with car insurance or other bills to pay. They were good kids from nice families. But, like their parents, college never entered into their world view. That was for other people. These students looked at my class, a graduation requirement, as fun, but unimportant to their goals to leave school, work in the refineries, and fish.

In my teaching situation in rural Wis., I saw many of the same kinds of students. Some of their parents actively worked against the idea that their children should go to college. One bright student’s father told her that going to college was a way to build debt. She should be out working instead. Another kid’s parents told her she wasn’t college material; although, she was one of the smartest kids I’d had in class. One of these students just graduated from college; the other is answering phones for a local company.

The official teacher line. I’ve always told my students that the reason teachers prepare them for college is so they’ll always have options. In other countries with apprenticeship programs, a mid-life career change and university night school isn’t always a possibility. I tell classes that we want to prepare them for their future, not for their present.

We all know that college grads make more money statistically than their peers who hold just a high school diploma. In this uncertain economy where a person has a job one day and none the next, the college degree is something that no economy and no downsizing can ever take away.

Some kids, though, just want out of school. I get it. Sitting in a desk all day is a struggle for many of our kids. They hate the rules and the work. They long for the hands-on world with its practicality and its paychecks.

Dreams deferred. I read another article in the Wall Street Journal about investor Warren Buffet’s kid, Peter. When Peter graduated high school, Dad gave him a good sum of money. Not a ton of money, but enough to get Peter started in something and encourage him to work. In Buffet’s words the money was, enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing.

Peter dropped out of Stanford, moved to San Francisco, and joined the music scene. After odd jobs and a start at MTV, he’s now an Emmy-Award winning musician.

Buffet isn’t my dad and I hear he’s not adopting, but the Oracle of Omaha does teach us something: it’s a wise investment to follow one’s dreams. Would you ever advise your students to run off and join the circus? Follow the Great White Way? Drive toward the Sunset Strip? These are risky choices – who knows if kids will succeed?

My point is that maybe college isn’t for everyone. But, college prep is. Having that college prep gives students a fall back. If a person wakes up in his thirties and decides that his construction job, his waiter job, his whatever job doesn’t really suit him, he has options.

So, no. I don’t think every kid should go to college. But I think every person should have the opportunity.

References

Markelin, M.B. (2010) What If a College Education Just Isn’t for Everyone? USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-03-16-1Acollegeforall16_CV_N.htm?csp=34 Accessed 3/16/2010.

Shellenbarger, S. (2010) Lesson From Buffet on Following Dreams. Wall Street Journal. Tuesday, March 16, 2010, D7.

What do you think? Should we pursue the college prep curriculum that we’ve embraced for years? Should our schools move to a more vocational model for those kids who want it? Let’s discuss!

Tags: college

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