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Originally Posted by marichiko
A college education does NOT fall into this catagory while a primary school education does?
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Right. The government has decided that everyone gets a high school education. We have to pay for it and they have to attend, regardless of quality. A college education, on the other hand, is a voluntary thing you have to work hard at, and pay for yourself, if you can't qualify for scholarships.
A college is run like a business; if they start sucking, they lose applicants and money. If a high school starts sucking, the kids and the federal money keep right on coming, there's just less learning going on.
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Originally Posted by marichiko
Today's society with its technology and competition requires a better education for a person to be successful (Yes, I know there are the occasional individual exceptions, but I'm talking about the country as a whole).
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I think you and I have different definitions of "successful." I think it is still quite possible for a person to be successful without a college education.
My husband has no college degree. His mom is a kindergarten teacher and his dad was a landscaper. He was fascinated by computers as a kid, despite not having one in the house as a child, and proceeded to learn everything on his own through library books. He worked very hard to get his first job in a computer assembly shop. He is now a network administrator making a very decent amount of money.
My friend Mike has no college degree. He moved up the ladder at Domino's Pizza for awhile, then decided that the franchise path was not for him and that he wanted to own his own business with no strings attached. He called random contractors in the phone book, offering himself as an "apprentice" for $9 an hour (non-English-speaking day laborers in my city get around $7-8 an hour.) For six months he worked for a guy, asking questions constantly. Then he left to start his own contracting business, and two years later he lives in a house that cost three times what mine did.
My friend Tara has no college degree. She started as a cashier at a local grocery store, and has stayed with the company for almost 7 years. She is now the senior HR administrator. She plans to be the store's general manager in another several years. They make well over $100,000 a year.
You may write these off as "occasional individual exceptions," but these are just the three people closest to me. I can think of four more very successful people I know with only a high school education right off the top of my head. I believe they are indicative of the opportunities available in the country as a whole. And of the three, only my husband worries about global competition. We will never be able to outsource new-home-building and employment paperwork overseas.
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Originally Posted by marichiko
Why should ANY child in this wealthy country have to attend a "crappy school"? Especially with the coming pressures of a global workforce and economy, isn't it in the best interests of this nation to ensure that our people are as well educated as possible?
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Of course they shouldn't. The question is, what will improve those schools? Money is not the answer.