College Isn't For Everyone, Only The Top 20% Of High School Graduates Should Be Admitted. Only 41% Graduate After 4 Years. Here's How To Fix It.

State universities should be free for those who qualify. Private institutions can offer various tuition assistance grants, as well as their own financing.

There is a lot of chatter on the internet about President Biden’s executive order wiping out $10,000 in student debt. That takes a big chunk out of or actually pays for, 1 year’s tuition at a state college. Whether or not he has the legal authority to do that, is probably going to be decided in a whole bunch of contradictory lawsuits. I’m sure some are already in the works. Eventually, it will reach the Supreme Court.

If you go to the website, American Compass, Oren Cass has a wonderful article on the funding of a college education. https://americancompass.org/articles/bidens-student-loan-forgiveness-is-wrong-heres-how-to-handle-college-debt-instead/

I agree with many of his points, especially about making colleges responsible for their own financing. It’s time for the student loan industry to go the way of the dinosaur. Private colleges will have to offer various financial aid and scholarship programs to those that they accept, including student loans, in order to stay in business. Those student loans will need to be dischargeable in bankruptcy too. If you do that, I think you will see many private colleges becoming a lot more selective in who they accept.

Here’s where I disagree with most of my fellow conservatives: Everyone should be educated to their highest potential. It doesn’t make any difference if all they can learn to do is tie their shoes. At the other end, you have your rocket scientists. Public education from pre-K through a Ph.D. should be free in a public institution, but as you go through the education system starting in pre-k, you need to be tracked and steered toward what you are qualified for and capable of achieving. The downside, however, is you might not get to pursue a career that you really want. Higher education slots would have to be based on economic manpower needs. I can see the actuaries drooling now.

What are you interested in? Usually, if you are interested in something you are good at it, or have the potential to become good at it. If you show the potential to become a world-class musician, you will receive the training that will get you there; providing that you do your part of the bargain. Remember the old saying: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” “PRACTICE”!!!

Public colleges should be free for those that they accept, but they should only offer acceptance to the top 20% of our high school graduates. You could put another 15% on a waiting list. There will still be some that drop out because they were offered either a great career where they didn’t need a degree like yours truly, transferred to another institution, or just left. Maybe they decided to go into the trades and are now in a paid apprenticeship program. Some are now Journeyman electricians making $150,000 a year. Some just quit. It happens. Right now 59% of those in college do not graduate after 4 years. After 8 years, 89% finally do graduate. Why does it take 8 years to complete successfully a 4-year Bachelor’s Degree? We are nowhere near selective enough when we are determining who goes to college.

According to the Brookings Institute in Washington, DC, up to 65% of entering Freshmen need remedial courses in Math and English. Why? https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2022/02/15/rethinking-remedial-programs-to-promote-college-student-success/#:~:text=Many%20incoming%20college%20students%20are,six%20years%20of%20initial%20enrollment. What that tells me is that the K-12 public schools are not doing their jobs. Could it be the dumbed-down curricula so that students can feel good about themselves, while they know basically next to nothing?

Why 20%? I’m a firm believer in the old 80-20 rule. It seems to apply to just about everything in this world. Yes, we are transitioning from an industrial-based economy to an information and knowledge-based economy, but even so, the 80-20 rule still seems to apply. How do I figure 80%-20%? You only need 20% of the population to be college-degreed managers. The other 80% are the worker bees. That applies to white-collar industries as well as blue-collar industries. We are producing over 20% more “managers” than the economy requires. Remember the big lie: Everyone needs to go to college. That’s why you have so many angry, disgruntled philosophy majors with $100,000 in student debt from an expensive, high acceptance rate private college, working in coffee shops.

We only need 20% of the population to have college degrees and be part of the various professional/management classes. 25% if you take into consideration those with professional degrees like doctors and lawyers. Right now over 40% of the population have college degrees in an economy that only requires 20%. Do you still want to get that degree that ends in “Studies”? How many musicians do you know that actually make a living as a musician, a working-class or middle-class musician, not the superstar? I was one of the lucky ones. I was able to have a great middle-class career as an Air Force musician. I now have a comfortable retirement, because of the Air Force.

Here’s how I would break down the free state school college acceptance program: Unfortunately, the only practical way to measure whether or not someone has the brain capacity for higher education level work is by standardized tests. They also function as a sort of de facto IQ test. That’s why the Left hates them. They show that much of the Left’s power base, outside of the college degreed crowd, is not smart enough for college-level work. Then, comes the whine about standardized tests, and how they are unfair because some kids, have learning disabilities and don’t test well. Yes, I know. Some kids don’t test well. I have a cousin who didn’t “test well,” yet she graduated from the University Of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, CT with a Bachelor Of Science In Nursing Degree. She is a Registered Nurse. There are programs out there that help them develop test-taking skills. Use them. She did.

The standardized tests that determine college acceptance into free public colleges, need to be a lot more comprehensive than the SAT or ACT, and they need to be a lot more difficult. We need to have a lot fewer students taking remedial courses in College. Remember, a college education from a state school will be free to those who qualify. If you are going to have free college you have to have a weeding tool; brutally difficult, quadruple blindly scored tests are the way to go. A lot of kids in college today would never qualify, and that is the idea. 20% qualify.

Another option is to enroll in a two-year community college and get an Associates Degree. After two years, you could decide to take your new skills into the workforce, or you may decide to transfer those credits to a four-year state institution and finish your Bachelor’s. Either way, if we do it right, there will be a job and more than likely a nice rewarding career, waiting for you after you graduate. That should be the plan. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out that way. That’s not how our system is set up.

Here’s how I would continue after the 20% Bachelor’s Degree. 20% of that 20% get accepted into a free Master’s Degree program. I can hear the Left’s head explode now. Only 20%? Yup! One step further…20% of the 20%, of that 20% get accepted into a free state university Doctoral program.

About 3.2 million students graduate from high school each year. 20%. is 640,000. Supposedly, there are currently 2.9 million students who are Freshmen in college. I’m not sure that is completely accurate but even so, that’s way too many. After the first semester, many of them won’t be coming back. I can remember the required “Freshman Flunkout Courses,” very well. You worked your ass off for a “C,” while the brainiacs got the “A’s” and “B’s,” with the real brainiacs getting those grades without breaking a sweat. About 1/3 of the Freshman class at my main alma mater, Bowling Green State University flunked out after the first semester. Others leave for other reasons. Colleges plan on this. Take their money, and if they don’t meet bare minimum standards, you throw them out. Besides the SAT and ACT acting as de facto IQ tests, those “Flunk Out” courses do the same. If you struggle to make a “C” in those courses, you might not have the mental capacity for 300 and 400-level courses.

More leave after their Sophomore year too. They would have been better off going to a community college for two years. They could have taken practical job-related courses, in addition to a concentration on standard college math and English, with a few electives thrown in. The 2-year community colleges are also a lot cheaper. If the student has left school and gone to work, and had taken out a student loan, they are now paying it back, and it has destroyed their financial stability and wealth accumulation potential. Whether or not this is intentional is a debate for another issue. Right now, let’s just say it is an issue.

So you are going to go from 3.2 million to 640 thousand college students? Yes! I can hear wailing and see the crocodile tears now. Of course, you can apply to any of the Ivy League and private institutions, but if you are accepted, you either have to pay for it yourselves or have them offer you some sort of scholarship/financing package. I don’t know too many people that can afford to go to Harvard. I’m not in those social circles.

If the economy changes to the point where you need more graduates of higher education, you create those slots, but they have to be based on market needs. Regardless, there will no longer be government-guaranteed student loans. Colleges claim that a college education is an investment in your future. It sure is. At the same time, the college has a vast financial investment in your future too. Let the state schools be free and limit their enrolment to 640,000 students per year. Let the private and Ivy League schools offer their own financing. If you can’t pay back the loan, because you were not adequately prepared for the workforce, the burden now rests with the college that lent you the money for an education at their school. Better yet, they should just offer financial aid packages and scholarships.

There you have it. Free public education from pre-K through Ph.D. for those who qualify: 20% 20% 20%.