Capital and Main: College for all has failed America. Can it be fixed?

Excerpt of article by BGI Senior Fellow Rick Wartzman.

‘“If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today,” the commission declared, “we might well have viewed it as an act of war.” At a time when Japanese cars were widely perceived as being superior to American models, the Germans were stealing away U.S. market share in machine tools and the Koreans were making inroads in steel, it was a warning that resonated.

 Elevate academic standards in our K-12 schools, the commission implored, or we would soon be swamped by a “rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future.”

But by ushering in these academic reforms, the report’s greatest legacy may well have been this: It reinforced the idea that unless every student wound up going to college, we had failed them — and they had failed themselves….

…“There are some hints of progress. More than 15 states have eliminated the need for a four-year degree for most government agency jobs. Several prominent companies, including IBM and Accenture, have started to look for skills, instead of credentials, in their hiring. Such moves prompted the Burning Glass Institute, which conducts research into learning and work, to proclaim last year an “emerging degree reset.““

Read the full article here: https://capitalandmain.com/college-for-all-has-failed-america-can-it-be-fixed