At some point though, there has to be a stop gap or folks will be in the same situation 10 years from now.
1) College tuition costs need to go down.
2) College needs to be stopped being the default next step after HS for some kids. If you need remediation as a freshman to be able to do college level work, you need to be at a community college or JUCO.
3) Dual credit needs to be mandatory in HS, so that 100 level classes are basically complete at the end of HS and kids aren’t wasting an extra year in college and those costs taking Psych 101, Communications 101, etc.
4) Some colleges need to close. A kid who graduated from HS with a 2.0 is highly unlikely to be able to get thru 4 years of college and graduate with a degree that’s starting them out at a wage relative to the debt they may have incurred. We have a lot of colleges whose mission is to get education to kids at the lower end of the academic scale and many first gen students. Either put supports in place to help them not only graduate, but minimize debt and make the degree of value, or get out the game, the world has changed and colleges need to adapt with it.
5) Encourage public sector careers to folks who don’t know what to do with a degree in something with limited ROI. I realize politics might prevent a lot of these jobs at the city or state or fed, but firefighters, cops and postal workers are a few public sector gigs with steady pay increases, strong unions and pension. You can be retired at 52 with a full pension, health care benefits and working another gig, caking up.
6) some majors are useless now unless there’s a clear path to a professional degree. Hell, why do you think so many lawyers have undergraduate degrees in Poly Sci, Psychology, Sociology, Ethnic/Gender Studies, History, etc.? Shit, folks either knew going in all they had to do was keep a high GPA and kill the LSAT, or they couldn’t find a job with that major and law was the next natural option to get another 3 years to figure out wtf to do with their lives.
1) College tuition costs need to go down.
2) College needs to be stopped being the default next step after HS for some kids. If you need remediation as a freshman to be able to do college level work, you need to be at a community college or JUCO.
3) Dual credit needs to be mandatory in HS, so that 100 level classes are basically complete at the end of HS and kids aren’t wasting an extra year in college and those costs taking Psych 101, Communications 101, etc.
4) Some colleges need to close. A kid who graduated from HS with a 2.0 is highly unlikely to be able to get thru 4 years of college and graduate with a degree that’s starting them out at a wage relative to the debt they may have incurred. We have a lot of colleges whose mission is to get education to kids at the lower end of the academic scale and many first gen students. Either put supports in place to help them not only graduate, but minimize debt and make the degree of value, or get out the game, the world has changed and colleges need to adapt with it.
5) Encourage public sector careers to folks who don’t know what to do with a degree in something with limited ROI. I realize politics might prevent a lot of these jobs at the city or state or fed, but firefighters, cops and postal workers are a few public sector gigs with steady pay increases, strong unions and pension. You can be retired at 52 with a full pension, health care benefits and working another gig, caking up.
6) some majors are useless now unless there’s a clear path to a professional degree. Hell, why do you think so many lawyers have undergraduate degrees in Poly Sci, Psychology, Sociology, Ethnic/Gender Studies, History, etc.? Shit, folks either knew going in all they had to do was keep a high GPA and kill the LSAT, or they couldn’t find a job with that major and law was the next natural option to get another 3 years to figure out wtf to do with their lives.
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