It's Spring ... Now What? #3

In the salvo last week I alerted you to the shocking advice that perhaps college isn’t for everyone. An American audience would find this revolutionary because, after all, everyone these days is expected to go to college.

However, Professor X ~ writing in the June Atlantic ~ warns us that passing go and heading to the Quad isn’t for everyone. He and other professors of the English 101 ilk are the real hit men who have to parcel out the weakest link. In other words, college acceptance is for everyone but not all students finish the freshman year.

Part of the problem is in the numbers. Try as I might ~ I couldn’t come up with the exact figures on the internet but my guess is there are as many college and university places in America as there are high school graduates each spring.

Indeed, I remember my dear college counselor saying “there’s even a place for someone like you, Johnny” ~ this a few days after my feeble SATs arrived. (Thankfully, the next results were better)!

Here are some numbers I know by heart because I worked in Istanbul for nine years. In Turkey some 1.5 million school-leavers take an exam for 250,000 university seats. Yikes! That means there is a 6:1 ratio of applicants over seats.

Guess what that does to teaching, learning, curriculum and the other nicecities of academia? The competition is mind-boggling with older students (and parents) seeking out the best tutors, the best test-prep schools (Wednesday nights, Saturdays and Sundays) and an attitude ~ damn the rest of the curriculum ~ just get me ready for the TEST! In other words, if you don't study ~ very hard ~ there is not place for you.

Do some number crunching and you’ll see what there are so many dropouts in American higher education.