Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Going to college

This story is disappointing. It's about the USA's declining rank in the world for the percentage of its population that have college degrees. As one commenter (#147) points out, the article doesn't even name the countries that are supposedly doing better.

Isn't it just obvious that quality matters more than quantity?

And this site suggests that the rankings look bad, if they do, because two-year community college degrees are given as much weight as four-year university degrees.

This would be a complete non-story except for the fact that it is being reported as a story and will probably be treated as a problem by politicians. Cue more pressure from above not to fail anyone, to admit the unqualified and uninterested into college, and to change what is taught to keep people who don't want to be there awake. Sigh.

Perhaps it would be good to encourage more people to learn a trade, but I don't know that you need two years in college to do this. Mastery is good, forcing everyone into a one-size-fits-all system is not.

No comments:

Post a Comment