In a piece for the Sunday Week in Review section of The Times, which has just been posted online, I examine a third-rail question within the education world: whether some of those students struggling in college might be better served in other settings, academic or otherwise.
Yes, Federal labor statistics make clear that, in general, the more education one attains after high school, the higher one’s wages and the lower the risk of unemployment. Even a few years of college can be better than none, in terms of one’s lifetime wages.
But another set of Federal data projects that no more than 50 percent of those who begin a four-year bachelor’s program in the fall of 2006 will get that degree within six years.
A small but influential group of economists and educators argue that it is time to develop credible alternatives for some high school graduates that would steer them away from college and toward intensive, short-term vocational and career training.
