How To Fix Higher Education

As the budgets of schools grow tighter and tighter, especially in higher education, there comes a breaking point whereby the cost of education is higher than the students can afford. If one looks at it as a basis of space, there is only so many spaces that go around.

But if one looks at it from an efficiency point of view, the waste in higher education is utterly appalling. It's not so much the reform of the administrative costs (which admittedly is in serious need of reform), but reform of the entire structure of higher education.

College drop-out rates, from Freshman to Senior are 66% on average. That is, of the freshmen starting college, only one in three will graduate. The rest fall to the wayside by virtue of a lack of funds, a lack of time, a lack of motivations and other reasons. When looking at it from an efficiency point of view, we have a gigantic disparity between cost and efficiency.

Consider this: A community college - or vocational school - is a proving ground for most students. Those who can "hack it" in a community college can move on with minimum of fuss, bother and expense. But as with the four year colleges, the drop-out rate is high. The difference is that the vocational schools don't cost as much to attend as four year schools. If one were to revamp education so that one MUST attend a community college FIRST and acquire all of the piddling little subjects one must have in order to achieve a four year degree before moving on to the four year college, money can be saved by both the student and the college.

Consider this...

Make higher education two-tiered. The lower tier is for the vocational students - the ones who will get Associates degrees if they graduate. They don't pay as much as a four year college student for their two year study program. They can also learn a vocation (it's not called a vocational school for nothing) in that two years with which they can be satisfied. If times are hard and they can't finish that degree in the normal two years, they can take some time off and work on a better approach.

That first two years of schooling is crucial. One must learn in that time what they will do with the rest of their education, then mold their education to those desires or decide to change direction. A community college allows major changes in direction without major costs. Additionally, it is geared toward the lower levels of higher education, able to teach a student a vocation, or prepare them for transfer to a college of higher learning. It's cost-efficient and effective. It's the BEST way of dealing with a shortage of space in a four year college because instead of competing with tens of thousands of other Freshmen, you're competing with just thousands of other Juniors.

And here's where the genius lies: Eliminate the lower levels of education at four year colleges. Make them two year colleges strictly for those who have already done two (or more) years at the vocational level who are ready to move on with their educations.

What this will do is open up literally tens of thousands of extra seats in the upper levels, while filtering all the educational money spend in the higher college toward actually graduating more people. By the time someone hits a four year college after spending two (or more) years at the vocational level trying to decide what they want to do with their lives, the drop-outs are mostly weeded out. People are more directed, more goal oriented, more mature and more apt to make efficient use of the educational dollars that are currently blown on those who can't make up their minds, or who for whatever reason must interrupt, or end, their educational goals.

Make college a two step process - with the first step being vocational school. Make that step relatively inexpensive (compared to the second level) so that the natural inclination to explore and settle on a life goal can be more economically accommodated. Once graduation from the first step is done, they automatically get to go to the second step, because that second stage isn't accommodating some folks who may or may not have decided what to do, or who are grimly sticking with a choice (inevitably to drop it at some point) because they have spend so much money already on it.

The first two years of a four year education should be cheap (relatively speaking) and allow students to explore their future options. Those motivated by desire to achieve a wanted future are far more apt to get it than those who are just going through the motions, and the higher-educational goals for them should be accommodated by what we think of today as a four year college degree.

I mean, let's face it, we have Associates degrees, Bachelor’s degrees, Master's degrees and PhD's. Why have one school do all that when the current method sees so many who won't finish the process in the first place? Make college Level 1 and 2 a vocational level, cheap, easy to change and to attend. Make the next levels more expensive, harder to change and more structured. But separate them physically so that there are enough Level 1 and 2 campuses to handle those who want to explore their higher educational needs and desires with enough Level 3 and above campuses to accommodate those who have graduated from the lower level schools.

It's a far more efficient allocation of educational resources we have today and allows those who want a degree a better chance of getting one than the current system we have.