College for All — Or Not? Technical Education

Feb 04

College for All — Or Not?

Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education this week issued a report that sent a few shock waves through the “college for all” crowd. The report, Pathways to Prosperity, concludes that many students are ill-served by an education system that overemphasizes preparation for pursuing a bachelor’s degree and fails to recognize the need for other options.
Our fundamental problem is that our system has not evolved to serve young adults in this radically different world. Behaving as though four-year college is the only acceptable route to success clearly still works well for many young adults, especially students fortunate enough to attend highly selective colleges and universities. It also works well for affluent students, who can often draw on family and social connections to find their way in the adult world. But it clearly does not work well for many, especially young men. In recent years, a yawning gender gap has opened up in American higher education. Men now account for just 43 percent of enrollment in our nation’s colleges, and earn only 43 percent of bachelor’s degrees. Not surprisingly, women also account for 60 percent of the nation’s graduate students.
Similarly, among the low-income and young people of color who will make up an increasing portion of the workforce of the future, this single route does not work well either. Many of these students are frustrated by an education they often find irrelevant and removed from the world of work. And given the barriers—including weak or nonexistent career counseling, rising college costs, inadequate financial aid, and the frequent need to balance their courses with jobs that are often totally disconnected from their programs of study—it is a minor miracle that so many still manage to complete a degree.
As a nation, we currently spend over $400 billion annually on post-secondary education, but the returns on this investment are inconsistent. Efforts to hold colleges accountable for their graduation rates are finally gaining some traction. Complete College America, established in 2009 with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others, is working to dramatically increase the nation’s college completion rate through state policy changes. And at least three states—Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee—have changed their funding formulas to reward completion, not just enrollment.
While these initiatives are encouraging, we clearly need a more comprehensive effort to develop a robust pathways system. If high school career-focused pathways were firmly linked to community college and four-year career majors, for example, we believe more students would be likely to stay the course. Indeed, we are convinced that this is an exceptionally promising strategy for increasing post-secondary attainment. To achieve this promise, we also need to provide high school students with far better guidance. Many adults over the age of 25 have discovered that community colleges offer programs leading to well-paying jobs in healthcare, technology, and other fields, but recent high school graduates are often poorly represented in such programs due in part to lack of information.
Is this report right?
Where is the right balance between multiple options to meet diverse student needs and ensuring students are not inappropriately steered in one direction or another?

Technical Education