posts >> bradley > edward
_________________________________________________________
Bradley
What do you want to be when you grow up? This question is commonplace in schools across the United States and it is being asked of students at an increasingly younger age. It is expected of our youth to have a solid handle of what they would like to make of themselves in this short life of ours. The typical answers we’ve all heard before: astronaut, fireman, doctor, pro athlete. But as a student advances through the grades and into the final years of high school, that same question rears its head. This time with a bit of a twist. What to do about college, not to mention a subsequent career. If this student has not been taking AP courses in high school then they are already at somewhat of a disadvantage. Feeling unsure of the future, and a bit indifferent, this student may elect to enroll in a Jr college with the intent to complete the GE requirements at a relatively inexpensive rate. This student is unknowingly making a tradeoff that could possibly have profound effects. Many Jr colleges have classrooms that are overfilled with both students and apathetic mindsets. This does not always create the best learning environment for the student. After a few semesters of average grades, the student may even begin to wonder what they are doing with themselves. Would it have been worth it to pay a little or a lot extra in order to have a different college experience and education? Obviously the choice is case specific, but it seems as if Jr colleges have become the default of many new high school graduates. I’m definitely not suggesting attending a college or university because of its name, but there is something to be said about the quality of the human products of a quality collegiate educational institution.
_________________________________________________________
Edward
Education is the most important aspect of building a strong society. It is the golden ticket for the well off and the down trodden alike. If you stay in school and earn a college degree, regardless of your families history you can provide a better life for yourself and your family.
So when we talk about the failure of public education we are talking about the failure of our society. Education is the foundation up which everything else is built. When we fail to educate we fail at the only important thing we have to accomplish.
This is no clearer than in our urban high schools and our community colleges. Statistics recently released in a study, published by USA Today find, “Fourteen urban school districts have on-time graduation rates lower than 50%; they
include Detroit, Baltimore, New York, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, Denver and Houston.”
As to our community college system, while there are many reasons to attend a two year university, (too many of them to get into in one post) one of their primary functions is to transfer students to a four year university. At this task we are failing as well.
(click to enlarge)
Citing the report, Community College Transfer Rates to 4-year Institutions Using Alternative Definitions of Transfer, we are struggling to transfer half of our community college students to four year colleges and Universities.
Couple this with the graduation rates in our major urban areas and we get a grim picture of affordable public education and its success in our society.
4 Comments
April 4, 2008 at 9:44 am
Hey guys~
I believe all these things are important to consider about the future, but what about prayer? I go to a JC and sure its not a CSU or a UC but felt called here. I am a part of a very necessary ministry, as well as I believe that the JC enviroment is good for people like me who can’t afford a big state school. Also if you just say that you want to go to this higher level college but dont pray about it first what then? Joshua was defeated in chapter 7 after destroying Jericho, but when he went to Ai thinking it was going to be easy, he was defeated. Not only do to the fact that one of the Israelites had covetted something from Jericho’s plunder but he also never saught the Lord before going into battle. I believe we go where God would want us to go ad if it is a JC then thats where we go!
April 4, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I think it’s ridiculous that our society requires every single person to go to college in order to be successful. If we hadn’t forced and pushed so many people through the system, maybe a high school diploma would actually be worth something nowadays, insted of just a weary rung on the long ladder to a bachelor’s degree.
Every society needs doctors, lawyers, engineers, architechts, etc. But every society also needs what we’ll call ‘blue collar’ workers too: foodservice, landscaping, construction, janitorial services… the list goes on. My grandfather, the single greatest man I have ever known, never went to college. He started out working in a restaurant and owned three when he died, because he worked hard and was intelligent about it. If someone wanted to do that now, he would almost have to be independantly wealthy beforehand or have a business degree. Ridiculous! If you know your craft, you know your craft, and if you can learn it without wasting time and money at college, why not?
Maybe if we laid off and stopped societally FORCING people who don’t want/shouldn’t need to go to school to go to school, and took care of our absolutely vital ‘blue collar’ workforce instead with the way we do taxes and whatnot (i.e., don’t knock them out of existence with tax cuts to the rich), the people who want and need to go to school would actually be able to without ruining themselves financially. That was a long sentence, but you get the point. Since when was vocational training a bad thing? Why is it looked down upon in our society to want to be a mechanic, or a farmer, or a truck driver, or a salesman?
As for junior colleges, they’re a total joke. I know a handful of people who go there to work hard, get it done, and save money to transfer. God bless them, they’re probably going to succeed and lead wonderful lives. But, from my experience, the vast majority of kids in junior college are just graduated high school students whose parents are making them go to school and clog up the system for everyone else.
April 8, 2008 at 10:27 am
Mauro-
good to hear from you.
my question is, do you think educationally speaking that the JC you are at has prepared you for where life will take you?
April 9, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Mauro,
Your response, while thought provoking, applies only to particularly faithful christians. We really aren’t discussing the individual’s process for college selection, we’re talking about the pros/cons of education in the United States.
Also, just to nitpick, I’m pretty sure Achan’s sin is the only reason god supposedly punished the Israelites, because after Achan’s sin was exposed, the Israelites defeated Ai at their second go-around. Saying anything else would just be pure speculation on god’s motives, wouldn’t it?