[rnugent]

This article is so wrong, on so many levels it's hard to imagine that this was in a respected newspaper. The idea that some folks should not go to college is, at best, quaint. This reason that people attend college varies a great deal. Not everyone looks at it as a means to a financial end (otherwise there would only be several majors - Finance, Medicine, Law, Engineering). Do you think an English Lit major expects a job at Goldman Sachs upon graduation? Educators are suggesting this because they are dealing with a wave of unprepared Freshman and it costs them more money to teach remedial classes and then risk these folks dropping out. This is a "business" problem for the higher education industry. Wait, think about that phrase, "Higher Education Industry". College has become a big business. No longer do Universities exist to educate our population, they are now a for profit business. In California, it's easier to be admitted to a public university if you're from out of state than if you're a resident because the schools can charge more for out of staters.

The problem is that funding for K-12 schools has dwindled leaving our US grown kids unprepared for the riggers of university. At the same time the Higher Education Industry is looking for the highest profit students to attend and they are coming from out of state and out of this country. That leaves us with a workforce that is not home grown and a culture that underachieves.