Yep, my best friend, a Cuban immigrant, didn't score high enough in English on his entry test so he started college taking English 99..........and he still graduated a year before me:D

I think we need to elevate vocational training to a higher status in our society. It helps prepare non-college bound people for solid careers and is undeservedly looked down upon. Not everyone is meant for college, and the pressure for the to go diminishes the value for those who are.

Frankly, I think any high school students who declare themselves not to be college bound ought to graduate school with a professional certification in SOMETHING.

The point of his article is that he woman he describes does not deserve to graduate from any college. She is made to feel that she can do it, that she has to do it in order to be successful, and that is just plain wrong on many levels. She is not meant for college.

Plus, I keep hearing news stories about alleged shortages in the trades. This morning the local radio news ran a segment on Harley repair people and how the local voc tech has one of 3 Harley-certified programs in the country. And these people allegedly earn a starting salary that far exceeds that at most boring, BA-requiring office jobs. Isn't it a disservice to funnel kids through a college path to which they aren't suited, all so they can acquire massive student loans and a low-wage job, when they could instead go through a technical program and graduate with less debt and a higher earning potential?

That's the feeling out there these days. You have to graduate college or you can't be successful. You have "colleges" like Devery and ITT Tech with advertising campaigns targeting the low end of the educational spectrum. Where vocational training in criminal justice once was fine to be a police or correctional officer, you now need a degree to do the same thing. The problem with DeVery and ITT Tech is that they are still just vocational schools where classes don't transfer and the degree really is nothing more than a vocational school certificate. But the person who graduates now has a "degree" in whatever it was that they studied.

On a basic level, I define success as making a living wage. In order to make a living wage you have to have a job that pays well. In order to get a job that pays well these days, you have to have a Bachelors degree, experience, or both. Yet, for the most part the degree is looked more favorably then experience.

I had to interview hiring managers for a recent class. Over half said that they put resumes with degrees in one pile, degrees with experience in a second pile and experience with no degree in the third pile. The remainder looked at degrees then experience. In all cases, guess which stack is at the bottom of the interview call list?

Sadly, for the most part, you have to graduate college to be successful. Experience and certifications/vocational training doesn't cut it any more.

The question becomes: how MUCH less worthy is the degree? I would like to think that the decrease is minimal, but I am not dealing with people fresh out of college. Yes, there will be people who manage to get out of college without an education/skill set that reflects the degree. But I truly do hope the number is negligible.

Further, I don't know how it is in the rest of the country, but here is California, the universities are being inundated with applications - there is no shortage of potential students. Most universities are turning away a very high quantity of applicants; the last time I checked, my alma mater (Cal Poly - San Luis Obispo) had four times as many applicants as openings. With that in mind, I question whether schools are lowering standards just to increase sales.

Again, speaking only for what I know (the printing industry), vocational schools are looked on as a valuable training ground - the students from those institutions are highly sought after in many of the craft positions (press operators, pre-press operators, etc.).

In what little hiring I have been involved in, I look at what the person has done to make themselves better and more valuable to an employer. Have they taken extended training classes? Attending industry seminars? If I were hiring someone out of school, I would pay particular attention to what their extra curricular activities were.

A friend used to work next to a Devry. They called the people who went there "Devridiots" (with apologies to anyone here who might have gone there).

That's just it. Vocational training is good. But we don't impress that upon high school students. We act as if they either go to college or they're worthless losers. I think we do them a disservice by not convincing them otherwise.

Well, it's like that line from that old Bing Crosby tune:
:D

That is a double-edged sword. If a high-school counselor told a student that they were not good enough for college, and that they should consider a vocational program, then they run the risk of a parent bringing down the wrath: "How dare you say that my child is too stupid for college."

Also, I don't know if voc. ed. ISN'T promoted in high school. I know that when I was in school (amusingly, the same high school as you - although I was a year or two before you ;) ), voc. ed. WAS a viable option. It wasn't discussed with me (and I suspect not you either), but it was a viable option. There was a least SOME literature and I had a couple of friends who did discuss it. Maybe things have changed (I am an old fogey after all) but I believe it is discussed.

But the down side of voc. ed. is that it is more limiting than a college degree. While one may be able to get a higher paying job fresh out of a voc. ed certification program than someone getting a BA or BS degree, their future options are much more limited: they've effectively been trained for one task. Whereas someone with a Bachelor's degree has many more options.

I am often surprised that almost 20 years after graduating, that my Cal Poly education is still a factor for some people.