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  • May 8, 2009 11:01 AM EDT by Brian Sullivan

    College For Everyone? Finish High School First!

    graduates

    The President today asked every American to commit to at least one year of post-high school pcollege or vocational training.     He said the government will do what it has to do to help, and (of course) rolled out yet another new website, www.opportunity.gov (on a side note, wouldn't it stink to be in the private sector of any of these businesses that the government keeps building new websites for and pushing the population to go to).

    Its a good start.    More education and training is better than less.   But I think we are getting ahead of ourselves.   It is hard to do a year of "post high school" training when there is no high school to post up on.

    In 17 American cities the high school graduation rate is below 50%.   Think about that .... more than half  of all students in some areas don't even graduate from high school!    Nationally the dropout rate was 9.3% in 2006.

    And these dropouts cost everyone.   According to Colin Powells organization, America's Promise Alliance:

    Citing research and recent remarks from President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Mrs. Powell demonstrated to the audience the link between the 1.2 million students dropping out each year and the economic stability of the country. According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, dropouts from just the class of 2007 will cost the nation $329 billion in lost wages, taxes, and revenue over their lifetimes.

    Consider that.   Just 1.2 million dropouts cost Americans about 40% of total of the $787 billion dollar stimulus plan.

    Ambitious goals are good ... but if you don't have the building blocks the structure will fail.    We need to create plans to keep everyone in high school and make sure basic educational needs are met, not only for the students' sake but also for the taxpayer.

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Tania

And most vocational training is best when it is done ON THE JOB. Most college work can be done at home, online. The teachers just teach directly from a book in the first couple of years anyway.

May 11, 2009 at 11:13 am

Tania

People are getting high school degrees when they hardly show up for class and are practically illiterate. They are then getting "welfare" college admissions, and college degrees granted when they are still practically illiterate. The reason that "college for all" is being pushed is not to help people. It is to provide more taxpayer-funded jobs for the poor quality TEACHERS AND PROFESSORS that want jobs at universities and colleges where they earn too much money for too little work. It's just a scam.

May 11, 2009 at 11:10 am

Bill K

And the way many of you posters spell, the problem is obviously one of much larger proportion. "Mizerably? It's being ran?" Sheesh, your English teacher is having fits if he or she is reading this. I fear for this country.

May 10, 2009 at 7:12 am

6ftrabbit

This may not be PC, but not everyone needs to go to college - or even finish high school. Somebody needs to do society's grunt work. Like collecting the garbage, working assy. lines, fabricating all that hand built fine furniture the "rich and famous" college kids want, building everything from roads and houses to skyscrapers and bridges, packing a gun in the service of your country, pumping out septic tanks, service jobs of all kinds, etc., etc. There is no shame in actually "working" for a living, as opposed to sitting on your ass and telling other people what they "ought" to be doing.

May 9, 2009 at 4:20 pm
(1 Reply)

Shawn

All the teachers unions are doing the same thing to education that the UAW has done to GM. Destory it!!

May 9, 2009 at 1:21 pm

Phang

Maybe it's because of people like myself threw away thousands of dollars, four years in the military and four years in college only to graduate and find no jobs, while friends that went straight to work after high school are making a fortune. Who wants to waste 12 years of their life (high school, GI Bill, college) only to wind up in-debt and jobless?

May 9, 2009 at 1:05 pm

Mishka

No wonder that our public school system fails so mizerably: it's being ran by the Teachers' Unions and all curicullum is liberal-driven. Time to admit the facts (confrimed by the hard data on internaitonal students' competitions): our students are anmong the worst in the world! No wonder that we have Mr. Obama in the White House: a complete absence of REAL knowledge moves people like The One to power. Thank you for the excellent piece - again.

May 8, 2009 at 5:11 pm

Carla,Ballwin,MO

Happy Mother's Day - Mom (a big Brian fan, she will see this!) I love you and thanks for everything!!! Shameless, sorry for the Hallmark moment!!!

May 8, 2009 at 2:52 pm

john the elder

obama is probably going to give high school amnesty to those who have not graduated from high school and just let them go on to college.

May 8, 2009 at 2:10 pm

Pamela

Community colleges have basically turned into extended high school level classes for those who either dropped out or took boom-boom classes to barely pass HS. The president has "misspoken" again as you cannot become a registered nurse after 2 years in a community college. There is a HUGH difference between an associate nurse and a full registered nurse which requires a 4 year bachelor's degree from an accredited university.

May 8, 2009 at 1:37 pm
(1 Reply)

about this blog

  • Brian Sullivan joined FOX Business Network (FBN) in April 2008 as an anchor. He co-anchors the 10am-12pm ET hours of the FOX Business block. Prior to joining FBN, Sullivan served as an anchor for Bloomberg Television where he hosted the programs Morning Call and In Focus.

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