Gift Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/opinion/college-technical-vocational-education.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Fk8.4ZOj.NW5fBEG1VUN_&smid=url-share Same old notes. College isn't the right path for everyone, and by providing alternative pathways we can help prepare people for good jobs. What compelled me to make this post was this interesting pair of statistics: "[A]round 40 percent of high schoolers do not enroll in college upon graduating, and only 60 percent of students who enroll in college earn a degree or credential within eight years of high school graduation." So if you take 100 high school graduates, 60 of them will attend post-secondary school. Of those 60, only 36 will graduate within 8 years. That's a sobering statistic, but also it seems to contradict NCES data that the 6-year graduation rate is 64%: Fast Facts: Undergraduate graduation rates (40).
One likely reason for the discrepancy is that NCES focuses on a narrower cohort, of students who start full-time at a 4-year college and attend continuously. But when you include part-time students, transfers, students who stop and restart, or those in community colleges and vocational programs, completion rates drop significantly. The broader stat cited in the article likely reflects this larger, more diverse post-secondary student population. If I understand the articles correctly, it appears that the traditional college is no longer serving a significant portion of students effectively. So we need multiple, well supported educational pathways. With fewer than half of all high school grads earning any credential within eight years, there's clearly room to rethink how we define and deliver "success" after high school. So in parallel be it on college or elsewhere expanding high quality vocational, technical, and alternative credentialing options are about recognizing that one model can't fit all? More so at this junction, in a labor market that increasingly values skills and adaptability alongside (and sometimes even over) degrees.
I wonder how much of that 40% of people who dont enroll in college andlow graduation rate has to do with the high cost of college rather than it being the wrong choice for them. Mind you, this is US only. Many other developed countries with lower education costs have higher rates of college attendance and graduation.
