Quit Pushing Every Kid into College

I am glad to see an article about how the constant push of every kid into college is actually quite damaging for a lot of kids. I’d go farther and say that this is directly related to what happens in college, where then everyone is pushed into a specific major and field and career plan before they are ready to know what they want to do. But then the capitalists have totally taken over the education system and everyone in charge wants to serve the rich donors, which means doing their employee training for them. In any case though, we really absolutely have to have economic options for kids who don’t want to go to college, we have to respect those choices, and we have to say that it is just as good for them to choose a different path, since many of them are going to choose it anyway.

School engagement is down. The middle- and high-schoolers surveyed find school less interesting than they did just last year, and only about half believe they’re being challenged “in a good way.” The problem is especially acute for teens who say they don’t want to go to college right out of high school.

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When asked whether “my schoolwork challenges me in a good way,” just under half of middle and high school students agree, with only 14% agreeing strongly.

Many middle- and high-schoolers feel disconnected from what they’re being taught in the classroom. Just 46% agree that “at school, I get to do what I do best every day.”

Sure, lots of students won’t love learning fundamental math concepts or how to conceive a well-reasoned argument, but they need to learn them anyway, hopefully with the help of a good teacher. What’s concerning is that students say they feel much less engaged in school than they did just last year, compared to Gallup’s 2023 Gen Z survey.

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While only about half of Gen Z students say they plan to go to college, their K-12 schools spend a lot of time talking about it — way more than they talk about alternatives.

Sixty-eight percent of high-school respondents say they’ve heard “a lot” about college.

By comparison, just 23% of high-schoolers say they’ve heard “a lot” about apprenticeships, certificates and vocational programs. And only 19% say they hear a lot about jobs that don’t require college.

“The conversations that [K-12 schools are] having with middle-schoolers and high-schoolers are predominantly about college,” says Zach Hrynowski, a senior education researcher at Gallup. “Even the kids who are like, ‘I don’t want to go to college,’ what are they hearing the most about? College. We’re not talking to them about apprenticeships, internships, starting a business, entrepreneurial aspirations or jobs that don’t require a college degree.”

It’s funny in that we always talk about how we need more plumbers and such and those are good jobs, but in fact nothing in our education system or broader society actually says that’s OK. I might go a bit further and suggest that this at least could have some political implications. If you want to build a society that is not based on resentment, you need to meet people where they are at and that starts as children. If your entire education system tells a lot of kids that they suck for not being interested in this one path, then they are probably going to be a lot less likely to think much of you when you come along and present them with an alternative political path that you think they should take.

That’s obviously conjecture but either way, it’s also both wrong to build an economy where everyone has to follow a certain path to lead a different life and it’s wrong to build an education system telling students they are wrong for making a completely reasonable set of choices about their lives. I might for example say that going into the building trades could be a very good thing for them and there’s lots of great training opportunities with, say, the Carpenters.