Voice Of Tomorrow: Are four years of college really enough?

Are four years really enough?

Three down and two to go.  

As the father of five daughters I am constantly looking for ways to decrease the cost of college to our family, including looking at schools that allow kids to test out of entry level courses to save money.  Obviously, this demands you have students that are academically capable

 If all kids came to college more prepared for success, they should be able to finish school faster (and cheaper) than students who demand more classes and thus more years to complete school.  My family is currently planning for the graduation of a daughter who did 2 summer programs for college credit before attending her college, tested out of remedial courses as a freshman, and added summer school last year (at a much cheaper local college) to cut her four years into three years of college. If you are a student with focus on a technical school, you can actually finish in even less than 3 years

Sounds reasonable from the person/pocketbook that pays for college, but the kids that attend are speaking a different story.  According to the voice of one college journalist, 4 years of college may not  be enough time.

Hidden within the statement from this University of Colorado author is the message that our children are following a path and hoping for a plan to materialize. Clearly, many of us learned and then repeated this same pattern, but our parents did not have the school debt that we incurred, and its only getting worse for our children who are getting less and less parental support with financing college.

With the rising cost of education, our children are being straddled with more than debt, they are being educated by institutions unconcerned with personal reasons for acquiring a degree.  Five or six years later they are face to face with debt, over educated and under employed or under educated and unemployed.  Student loans won't wait very long for you to find the good job that your misguided education struggles to uncover, so the author offers a legitimate point.

This would be a great time for the cynical ones to scream in unison, "join the club".  The world is full of over educated under employed people.  However, I believe that if the children are truly our future, this should not be a club that we eagerly expand.

The truth is that this young lady does not feel pressured to finish college in four years, she feels pressured to stop racking up debt without a clear plan for tomorrow.  If we know for certain that it takes 8-10 years to become a medical doctor, shouldn't we know for certain that it takes 2-7 years to properly educate and direct students that are a by-product of schools we know for certain are mostly failing them?

Getting a good grade in a bad school is not an amazing feat while getting a college ready education is, no matter how great your bad school grades might appear. Schools that do not prepare kids for college fail all of their students in this regard. On the other hand, students who complete a rigorous high school program could and should consider a fast track route towards careers that already interest them.  Not every school is failing our kids, just most of them are.  As a result, millions enter into colleges every year destined for a struggle.

Maybe they fight their way through school and eventually find a good job and hopefully pay off their debt in time.  Possibly they fall through the cracks and become dependent on public funds as we support them towards being fully self sustained.  No matter the scenario, the social strain of under educated children has a cost that ends up being much more costly than the cost of any 4 year degree at any college on earth.

My point?  Education should be free because ignorance is way too costly.