Education Is for Everyone, But College Isn’t
Many career skills can be better and more cheaply taught at two-year schools or on-the-job.
Who has time for “The Symposium”?
Photographer: Gordon Chibroski/Portland Press Herald/Getty ImagesRepresentative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she wants to turn K-12 schooling into K-16 -- in other words, to move toward making public four-year colleges free and universal. But there are good reasons not to do this. Past a certain point, education probably works best as an eclectic mix of approaches rather than as a one-size-fits-all program.
The four-year university program has become the standard among the educated classes who make education policy. But just because the system worked for them doesn’t mean it works for everyone. Over time, the percent of young Americans with college degrees has risen, but it’s still a minority: