College For Everyone?

April 14th, 2007 · 5 Comments · Education

Should every kid who wants to go to college be able to? If Evan Dobelle gets his way the answer would be yes.

I’m not sure I would agree completely with Dobelle, who spoke last night at the Salisbury Forum. Dobelle is the current president of the New England Board of Higher Education and a past president of Trinity College in Hartford and of the University of Hawaii system.

I would say I agree with him 50%. There are certainly, as Dobelle noted, millions of qualified high school graduates who cannot afford college or did not apply because their families never really considered it an option. Clearly, we need to do more for them.

But having spent a dozen years as a high school teacher in private schools, I can attest to the fact that there many (perhaps an equal number to those cited in the above paragraph) who have no business in a college or university but are attending because 1) they have been told they should 2) they have a high school diploma and 3) they can afford it.

The truth is that college is not for everyone and a desire to attend (in and of itself) is not a particularly good indicator of a fitness to be there.

So do we want to increase the numbers of students in college as a percentage of the population? I suspect not. There is a great need in our economy and in society for people to perform tasks that do not require a college degree. And I’m not just talking about flipping burgers or stocking shelves at Wal-Mart.

If you want to be an electrician, a carpenter, a welder or a plumber, for example, the best thing you can do is graduate from a technical/vocational high school and then get an apprenticeship with a pro.

After you get your license, you’ll need to stay current in your field, but my understanding is you don’t need to set foot in a college or university to make a good living in either of those fields. And guess what: I could name people in those very lines of work who are among the happiest and most community-involved people I know.

[Aside: There is a third subset (of which I was a member) who are intellectually equipped for college but need a year or two to mature before enrolling.]

To be fair, Dobelle also spoke of many other subjects with which I agree: the need for stronger town-gown partnerships of the kind he pioneered at Trinity; the need to win “the international competition for skills and talents” and the threat posed by developing nations; stronger pre-school programs; and the urgent need to adopt a model of sustainability for our cities.

That having been said, while I did not stay for the Q&A at the end, I found Dobelle’s presentation a bit dry. He essentially read from a prepared text and appeared to be going through the motions, at that.

I have seen Dobelle speak on television before and he has always impressed me. Last night, however, he was off his game, stumbling over his words several times. In an interview earlier this week, he told me the bulk of the evening would be sent answering audience questions. But he spoke for a full 90 minutes.

I thought it would be over after about an hour, when he first said, “In conclusion …”. He went on for another 15 minutes, then said “So to conclude” again. Then he went on for an additional 10 minutes before wrapping up — at which point the Salisbury School students and about a dozen others left the chapel.

The more subdued version of this Salisbury Forum was in stark contrast to the last one I attended in October. At that time, forum goers listened to an electrifying talk by Yale Law School Prof. Ahkil Reed Amar, who I predicted will be a SCOTUS nominee in a Democratic administration.

Speaking of predictions. Where will Dobelle head next? He has moved around a lot in his career. I hear UConn has an opening …

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5 responses so far ↓

1 Geoff Brown // Apr 14, 2007 at 2:09 pm

I’m glad to hear differing views of this. I’m writing this as somebody who had a privileged (i.e. expen$ive) education all the way through a post-Masters certificate — and who then, after retirement, re-matriculated at our own Northwest Connecticut Community College to see how things had changed in 40 or so years, taking the undergrad courses I didn’t take the first time through.

My conclusion is that anyone in our area today who genuinely wants a decent college education can get one!

That does NOT mean four years at an expensive residential college, ejoying a broad program of varsity athletics, elaborate extra-curricular activities, fraternity or sorority life, and generally deferring adulthood. (I have plenty of personal experience at that.)

What it DOES mean is, even if your high school record was not stellar, you can take the courses you need for the first two years of college, while living at home and working a full-time job. You will be taught by professors who are motivated to teach, not self-aggrandize. You will be surrounded by other students who, like yourself, are not deferring adulthood. If you have academic difficulties, you will be able to get help. If you want to go on and finish up your bachelors degree, you will be able to find a way to do it.

Not only is tuition low, but there are several kinds of student aid available.

During my five or so semesters as NCCC I found the students to be highly motivated, the professors to be committed, helpful, and very competent, the administration to be supportive, and the cost easily manageable (as it turned out, my military service back in the Vietnam era gave me nearly a free ride).

I did not hear Dr. Dobell’s talk, but I am not sure just what problem he could have been addressing. College is available and affordable right here, right now.
2 Jake // Apr 14, 2007 at 4:26 pm

In the world of “information is everywhere for free” (which if not here, is certainly close at hand), it seems anachronistic to imply that everyone should be seconded to institutions to learn. Particularly institutions that are so out of step with contemporary society.

The modern American university emerged as a training ground for an industrialized society. The information economy has different needs, few of which are filled by the present system. At worst, colleges can be described as corrupt non-profits that obsess on their brands, employ unproductive workers, collude with the public sector to secure revenues, serially engage in price fixing, have overly politicized environments that offer no semblance of intellectual diversity, employ management oversight practices that would put private sector businesses behind bars, and offer student peer cultures that are destructive and infantalize young adults.

Not surprisingly, the private for profit market is responding with focused education companies whose market caps now rival Ivy endowments. They provide the infrastructure for upwardly mobile lower and lower middle income teens to train for information economy jobs. They are successful and are making their students successful.

Here’s some anecdotal evidence. My house cleaner, an industrious immigrant from Romania asked me what to do about her son. He was graduating from high school, a good student but not socially attuned to student life. He loved computer games and was good at math. Everyone was telling her and her son that he should go to college, that it was the only way to “make it” in America. The son didn’t want to go because he was fearful of the social pressures.

I suggested that he go to ITT Tech. He could live at home. He could work with the computers he loved. The ITT Tech grads who worked in the computer room at my company were all great. So he went. He did well. He even met a special girl geek there.

Now that big lug of a kid is working in the IT department of an insurance company in Philadelphia. He’s barely 20 years old. He has five or six kids working for him and he’s pulling in around 60K. He has moved out of the house and his mother is getting ready to retire as a house cleaner.

(In the UK, a low percentage of kids go to school past their eighteenth birthday. I could never tell who was college educated and who wasn’t. It certainly doesn’t make much difference in terms of who is successful in business.)

The question is this. Had he gone to college, failed because of his social problems, what would he being doing now? My bet is that he’d be flipping burgers and his mom would still be doing fifteen houses a week, instead of the one (ours) she is still doing.

Dr Dobell’s suggestion is probably driven chiefly by the knowledge that the more people who go to college, the more revenue that will be bestowed on the failed university institution. Only if colleges begin to reform themselves is his a useful suggestion. Failing that, the market will increasingly step into the void and provide solutions that marginalize the colleges and universities to the edges of the knowledge economy.

The richest guy in the world saw what a waste of time college can be. Increasingly so will others. The time isn’t to suggest that everyone should head off to their local failing college. The time is to encourage teens to enter adulthood more quickly and/or encourage the kind of educational diversity that an information based economy requires.
3 Catherine // Apr 15, 2007 at 5:46 pm

It’s great Jake was willing to help his “help”. I have heard some who don’t believe in eating with the help. I’d like to know if the housekeeper has interest in further education, and encourage her to pursue that as well, perhaps through a voluntary EAP (Employee Assistance Program a la education).

As Terry points out, some teens need to mature a couple (maybe even 4 or 5) years before appreciating college or polishing skills to handle college-level work. Hearing about the drug use among college students and localities in general, being more mature when leaving home makes sense. Even driving at 18 or 20 could be encouraged to save lives and the planet.

I did not get to the talk on 4-13, but feel we have much to discuss as communities, not only as isolated groups of parents and individuals schools, as to how to grow kids up right in the first place to give them the optimum chance to succeed (and take care of others if the system or our humanity demands it).

Check the other blog about LHK in Falls Village near the end for “big picture”ideas about timing education to see kids do well in first grade and beyond rather than allow many 5 year olds in first grade to stumble and fall through the cracks. Good pre-school would be great as well as parenting groups and cooperative playgroups for any parents still on that luxury track of raising their own critters.

Glad to hear feedback, and keep youth and education current in the headlines…More local folks in CT could find ways to supplement and possibly interact with the schools, but rules about liability and school safety are fencing folks out for the most part.

Some trends swing back and forth, but in our country with the Patriot Act and heavy military agendas, our students are looked at as primarily national assets in terms of soldierhood. It’s rather tough all over, I’d say. We need to stick together in terms of keeping track of doublespeak and speaking up when asked politely or otherwise, not to.

Yak away. Some folks fought hard for such freedoms which are diminishing at a high rate of speed. Peace, Catherine
4 fred // Apr 16, 2007 at 2:16 pm

i left for college practically the day after I graduated high school. I can count on two hands how many roommates I have come and go because the fell trap to the party lifestyles that flunked them out. one even won an appeal from the school to go home for a semester to clear himself out then come back ready to work, only to fall into the same traps.

some do need some time to mature before being sent miles away from home and expected to become responsible for their own actions.
5 Jake // Apr 19, 2007 at 4:42 pm

Catherine… Oh, yes, everyone who employs a house cleaner is the equivalent of an 18th century bigot who treats the help like the horses in the stable. Wow, why didn’t I think of that before opening my upper class trap.

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