Education Rut
A few decades ago, children had it beaten into their heads that’s if they worked hard and did well; they would go to college and get a job. Now this is not so much true, kids now see that in our economy even if you go to school and get a degree, it is still not a sure thing that you will get a job (Robinson). The current school system was designed for a different era. It was designed for the 18th and 19th century, so how do we expect our kids to succeed when our society and economy is so much different now than it was (Robinson). College is so expensive now that people can hardly afford to go, and if you do go most of the time you have to take out loans and then once you graduate you have to start paying for them. This is difficult to do because the economy is terrible; it is not guaranteed you will get a job right away when you graduate college. There are plenty of people out there who have college degrees and are working at fast food places because they can’t find jobs.
It should come to no surprise that higher education is in trouble. The price of tuition is skyrocketing and there is no looking down. At public colleges and universities, tuition hikes averaged nearly 8 percent this past academic year thanks to cash-strapped state governments slashing higher education budgets (Glastris). Community colleges are in such a high demand because of the lower tuition that they actually have to turn students away. I don’t understand why there is such a shortage of labor at community colleges when people are practically begging to get in. You would think the extra money they would get by letting more students in would enable them to have more faculty. There is no doubt in my mind that the school system needs to be changed because if we are telling kids that they need to go out and go to college and they will get a job, we are lying to them. We need to teach them how to be in the 21st century and how to survive in an economy like we have.
Most high school graduates now are taking time off before going to school so they can work and figure out how it is to be on their own. A few decades ago, this wasn’t the case. Kids lived at home until they graduated and then they moved out and lived at school or they went into the military and then they graduated and got jobs. I think it is crazy that there is such a high demand for labor, yet it is almost impossible to make it into programs and colleges unless you are wealthy and have perfect grades. There is a large need for nurses right now, but it is so hard to get into nursing programs because of the lack of teachers. I think this country is in an education rut. And we don’t know how to get out of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment