I totally agree with you. What these private for profit colleges like the Art Institutes and Phoenix colleges do is practically criminal. I taught at an Art Institute for one quarter and was so disturbed by the corporate environment for profit environment that I quit. They consider each student who enrolls a form of income and will continue to enroll students who have failed repeatedly and show absolutely no signs of even wanting to be in college. We're talking alot of money, too. It costs about $80,000. to get a degree from there. If a teacher wants to fail a student, they have to get the student's signature since, well, the student is the client and the teacher is the servant. It's incredibly fucked up.
On the other hand, I have also taught at community colleges for seven years and have seen the quality of the student change dramatically for the better. As state universities raise tuition, students turn to community college for their basic courses. Most of the students are very capable, many are older and can find a schedule that fits their work schedule. I've heard from more than one college student that the classes that they've taken at community college were better than those they took at university. This could have something to do with the diversity of the classroom and the commitment of the teacher. There is a sense that community colleges fill an important social role and I've found community college instructors for the most part to be very committed despite dismal wages.
Another problem hinted at is the failure of primary education to motivate a love of learning in the student. It is my opinion that most high schools these days are simply forms of incarceration - places for kids to go while parents have to work. The kids are coming out so depressed and passive and lethargic that they can't do anything. It's a huge problem that we need to address as a culture and it's about much more than our education systems, it's really about how much we value our children's minds and spirits.

I got through a VERY inexpensive public undergraduate university in three years, and a moderately expensive MA in five. As someone who works primarily with college students and college-bound high school students, I feel like the best solution to this problem is one that the author fails to touch upon. Take time off. I believe that every student should take a year off (at least) after high school, before university. This will weed out those who do not have the drive to go to university, as there will be no pressure to immediately enter upon graduation from high school. Those who do decide to attend after a few years will have real life experience to inform their decisions about career tracks and majors. They will switch majors less, probably graduate in less time, and there years of partying won't be subsidised by whoever is funding their education. Ideally, a year or two of service (peace corps, military, Americorps, etc...) would be a perfect option, with a guarantee that the federal gov't will pay for a year of tuition to any public university the student is accepted to, in exchange for every year of public service the student completed. An individual could work in Americorps for four years, go to university for free, and still graduate at 26.

I call BS on this. Zac, I urge you to follow your premise to it's logical conclusion. You need to become a geneticist so you can develop a foolproof test for success inside the womb! Then you can just abort all the sub-standard babies! Build the super race!

I seem to remember that Bill Gates and Albert Einstein were college dropouts. Only in Lake Wobegone are all children above average.

The truth is that a motivated student can get a better education at a junior college than an unmotivated student can at the most prestigious Ivy League school. Parents need to realize that no college can remake your slacker child into a motivated successful adult. Colleges don't raise kids and shape their personality, parents do. If parents want to waste money sending their precious little mush-brain to Yale or Harvard then there is little we can do to stop them. Stupid runs in families unfortunately.

Looking back at 6 years in college, being a teaching assistant and a stab at graduate school, I wish I had worked for a couple of years and waited until I was in my twenties to enroll. I would have made better course choices and would have chosen a college more suited to my needs.

The overcrowded "core" courses taught by graduate assistants and the retired were mostly a waste of my money and time. Universities have become a country club culture aimed at warehousing the upper middle class.

Do not assume that attending college and not finishing is a waste, but finishing is not a waste. Presumably those who attend college without graduating learn something, business, western civilization, history, science, even simply an appreciation for knowledge. I read years ago that those who attend college but do not finish read more in later life than college graduates who think they know it all because they have a diploma. Of course not all students are diligent, but even many with college degrees don't know much. Obviously college is a waste for some, but finishing college is not a valid criterion for determining waste.

Note: It's the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

Your proposal is well-intentioned, but critics will say no American government will ever give itself the authority to evaluate high school graduates and advise them on where to pursue higher education. Should the government also advise people on what career would be best for them? Or whether they're responsible enough to take out a risky mortgage on their house?

Oh, wait.

There is some truth in this, and more people should give community college a chance. However, from someone in the top 54%, I find this statement troubling, "But the problem has deeper effects than hurt feelings: the 54% graduation rate means that around 46% of all money used to finance college tuition results in no degree." That statement assumes that all college tuition is paid up front, which it obviously is not. The 54% who graduate pay multiple years of tuition, while the 46% who don't, obviously pay less. What's UMass Amherst teaching these days anyway?

I was one of those kids completely unready for college. Completely agree with you on motivation. But not getting the degree, if you are capable of it, is a career limiting move for most people.

The smartest career investment I ever made (next to the eventual four year degree) was to get killer keyboard skills, dress well, be polite, be on-time, work hard and sign up with the best temp agency in town, asking them to send me into a variety of industries (you can sit years in a temp assignment, that wasn't the goal). My parents were upset, but all I knew was I had no direction.

Sure enough after a couple of years I found the industry I wanted to work in -- I liked the people, environment, the pay and the work.

When I went to college I was very motivated.

Just last month I was asked by a woman who had only an associate degree for help getting into a company she admired --- after talking with friends I had to tell her there was no way the competition is so fierce her peers have MBAs. She had a great resume and references too. She said only recently has her two year degree been an issue. Yet she's not willing to go back to school.

A degree is just one step. Education and major adjustments don't end for most of us, though.

The sad, but true fact is that a diploma does mean something. In this job market, being able to wow them in an interview is not a substitution for a "University of suchandsuch" on your resume. College for some has become a place to go for four (or so) years and come out with a better chance of being hired somewhere, regardless of how you performed there.

I don't think I'd agree that this makes college truly a waste of money. Besides, once you get a job with that swell degree of yours, its your responsibility to prove to your employer that you're not an idiot and that you did learn something in college. Those who have a dedication to and a love for learning are the ones who will excel in a job once they get it. But its still the college graduates who are getting their collective foot in the door first.

Also, Zac, way to pick up the feminine pronoun when you start talking about your example student who's not cut out for four years of college. That was cute.

I went to a top liberal arts school, but we had several students who had transferred from community colleges and all of them, I recall, were highly successful. One's even in a PhD program now.

Basing a student's probability of college graduation on that student's "academic record" assumes that an academic record accurately measures ability, drive, and other desirable factors, in predictable amounts. What do grades really measure? How well a student can cheat and not get caught? How much a parent hounds the student to finish his or her work? How nicely a student behaves? If a teacher has a prejudice for or against any number of groups and traits? If one teacher is an easy grader while another is tougher?

Even if cheating and bias could be removed from the equation, the final grades of a gifted student who slacks and of a hard-working student lacking competence are often the same on the surface, though those grades tell very different stories.

Until we establish a more accurate and detailed system of measuring and reporting academic abilities and predicting academic success, we should guard against assigning our current system more power to determine a student's future.

People, people, there is a third way. Public, 4-year universities can be a really good value. Don't think that private liberal arts schools and community colleges are the only choices. While community college is a good solution for lots of kids, I still think a 4-year university offers some benefits you can't get anywhere else. There is a lot of learning (life skills) that goes on outside the classroom that you're not going to have if you live at home.

I love the idea of standardizing the gap year. A lot of students go to college because that's the next thing expected of them, not because they're dying to learn.

I'm encouraging my two teens to do a gap year and then move into the dorms at our in-town university rather than living at home.

There might be a simpler solution than evaluating every high school student's aptitude for college/university. What about forgiving a portion of their student loans if they actually graduate with a degree? Then there is no judgement on who is fit for college or not - there is simply a reward for succeeding at it. There could be lots of workable variations on the idea of rewarding the attainment of a university degree with actual results that genuinely effect the student and his/her ability to repay his/her loans.
Of course, that doesn't take into account the opposite problem. I returned to school as an adult, completed my bachelor's and masters, then got a PhD in 2005. Currently, I make $12 an hour. No chance in hell of me ever paying off my student loans at that rate.