In 1960, only 29% of the U.S. adult population (25 and older) were HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES. In 1940, only one adult in 20 had completed four years of college. By Y2k, almost 25% of the adult population had a college degree. Today, more than half of graduating HS seniors go on to college.
What does this tell you? Are the American people getting smarter? Is it even possible to countenance such an absurdity?
Here's what happened: The Vietnam War, & the Baby Boom. I will explain.
In the 1950's and moving into the mid-1960's, colleges were very selective. You could graduate from HS with honors, a decent SAT score (say, 1100 or better), and would not be looking for "the college of your choice," but rather, looking for any college that would have you. In the job market, a college degree meant that you were smart, persistent, and capable, and employers would accept any degree as a solid indication that this applicant could do professional-level work, with minimal supervision. And that was true at the time.
But two things were coming together in a perfect storm of opportunity that has degraded, devalued, and utterly diminished "higher education" for all time in the U.S. First was the Baby Boom. We had a gigantic generation of pampered, relatively wealthy kids who wanted nothing more than four years of extended high school, but without parental supervision. The colleges started building new facilities with reckless abandon, and hiring Admissions officials with "sales experience," to manage the influx. They were reluctant to lower standards, however, believing that the pool of potential students was so large that high standards could maintained throughout the period of expansion.
But Vietnam changed all that. Male students became desperate to get into college, to avoid the draft (before the Lottery, a student deferment was golden). College professors began considering that students who failed might be expelled, drafted, and killed in battle. O, the humanity! Colleges, like all bureaucracies, gradually realized that the more students they accepted, the bigger the college would grow, and BIGGER is BETTER, right? So admissions standards began to decline, course work became watered down and diversified. Colleges that used to "brag" that half of their incoming freshmen could not make the grade and graduate, but later they became dedicated to the proposition that NOBODY would fail out (get drafted, and get killed in Vietnam).
And once the Baby Boom tapered off, we were left with tens of thousands of seats to fill from the following generation of students that was much smaller. Standards devolved even more.
And the administrations of colleges, already bloated to accommodate the Boomers, became even more inflated to address state and federal mandates, supreme court decisions, and the demands of the various constituencies that ruled the roost (women, minorities, G&L students, and so on).
Most recently we are suffering with a horrible job market where a typical HS grad can expect nothing but decades of employment frustration, and hapless governments that are powerless to divert the global economy that is making us uncompetitive. So they cling to the only thing they are capable of doing - sending more of our yoots to COLLEGE, by golly!
So the college degree that was once a ticket to the eventual Executive Suite for a small percentage of the population in 1960, has now become a virtual requirement for any job that requires the ability to read or write a coherent sentence. College itself has devolved into nothing more than a respectable way to prolong irresponsible adolescence for another 4-6 years before starting one's adult life. With a mountain of debt.
Of course, there are fantastic students in every college who are doing things that are at least equal to what college and university students of past generations did, but they are surrounded by masses of students who are simply not "college material."
Footnotally, I will mention the idiots like Bernie Sanders who want to make college "free" for everyone, so that we can all be prosperous. They point to Germany and other Western European states where college is provided by government. But the flip side of that coin is that in those countries, only the top students can go to college. Are we willing to go through the pain of making a degree meaningful again? N.F.W.
What does this tell you? Are the American people getting smarter? Is it even possible to countenance such an absurdity?
Here's what happened: The Vietnam War, & the Baby Boom. I will explain.
In the 1950's and moving into the mid-1960's, colleges were very selective. You could graduate from HS with honors, a decent SAT score (say, 1100 or better), and would not be looking for "the college of your choice," but rather, looking for any college that would have you. In the job market, a college degree meant that you were smart, persistent, and capable, and employers would accept any degree as a solid indication that this applicant could do professional-level work, with minimal supervision. And that was true at the time.
But two things were coming together in a perfect storm of opportunity that has degraded, devalued, and utterly diminished "higher education" for all time in the U.S. First was the Baby Boom. We had a gigantic generation of pampered, relatively wealthy kids who wanted nothing more than four years of extended high school, but without parental supervision. The colleges started building new facilities with reckless abandon, and hiring Admissions officials with "sales experience," to manage the influx. They were reluctant to lower standards, however, believing that the pool of potential students was so large that high standards could maintained throughout the period of expansion.
But Vietnam changed all that. Male students became desperate to get into college, to avoid the draft (before the Lottery, a student deferment was golden). College professors began considering that students who failed might be expelled, drafted, and killed in battle. O, the humanity! Colleges, like all bureaucracies, gradually realized that the more students they accepted, the bigger the college would grow, and BIGGER is BETTER, right? So admissions standards began to decline, course work became watered down and diversified. Colleges that used to "brag" that half of their incoming freshmen could not make the grade and graduate, but later they became dedicated to the proposition that NOBODY would fail out (get drafted, and get killed in Vietnam).
And once the Baby Boom tapered off, we were left with tens of thousands of seats to fill from the following generation of students that was much smaller. Standards devolved even more.
And the administrations of colleges, already bloated to accommodate the Boomers, became even more inflated to address state and federal mandates, supreme court decisions, and the demands of the various constituencies that ruled the roost (women, minorities, G&L students, and so on).
Most recently we are suffering with a horrible job market where a typical HS grad can expect nothing but decades of employment frustration, and hapless governments that are powerless to divert the global economy that is making us uncompetitive. So they cling to the only thing they are capable of doing - sending more of our yoots to COLLEGE, by golly!
So the college degree that was once a ticket to the eventual Executive Suite for a small percentage of the population in 1960, has now become a virtual requirement for any job that requires the ability to read or write a coherent sentence. College itself has devolved into nothing more than a respectable way to prolong irresponsible adolescence for another 4-6 years before starting one's adult life. With a mountain of debt.
Of course, there are fantastic students in every college who are doing things that are at least equal to what college and university students of past generations did, but they are surrounded by masses of students who are simply not "college material."
Footnotally, I will mention the idiots like Bernie Sanders who want to make college "free" for everyone, so that we can all be prosperous. They point to Germany and other Western European states where college is provided by government. But the flip side of that coin is that in those countries, only the top students can go to college. Are we willing to go through the pain of making a degree meaningful again? N.F.W.
