life to those who pay to attend them. Their promotional materials, full of photographs of happy students studying with classmates and enjoying the bucolic campus life, promise great careers and a golden ticket to the middle class. They are the quintessential institution of the twenty-first-century knowledge economy, tackling the challenges of the high-tech, globalized economy and the realities of an international workforce in rapid transition.
It took close to a century for high school graduation to become almost universal in first-world countries. Regular schooling did not suit all students equally, particularly those who were inclined toward the skilled trades. Governments generally did not fund high schools equally, resulting in substantial educational gaps among poor, rural, and minority populations. Equally, the rapid expansion of the post–World War II industrial economy, which drew heavily on low-skilled and semi-skilled labour in the factories and construction trades, meant that it was still possible, in the 1950s and 1960s, for young people, particularly men, to make a good living without a high school education. Many left high school without graduating, often following their fathers’ paths to plants, mines, or construction sites. The gathering strength of unions, combined with an abundance of low-skill/high-wage work, ensured that these jobs paid well and carried generous benefits. As a result, high school graduation rates did not rise as rapidly as early high school attendance.
The situation became more complicated by the early twenty-first century, as a pattern of “social passes,” particularly in the United States and Canada, produced a steadily increasing number of high school graduates who got through school without learning much of anything. Consider these depressing facts. Among American high school graduates, only 40 percent have age-appropriate reading skills and only 25 percent have appropriate mathematical skills.[1] The situation in Canada is not much better. The high school completion rate has increased in recent years for a number of reasons, one of them being massive government encouragement to stay in school; another presumably being a lowering of standards for graduation. The percentage of young adults (age twenty-five to thirty-four) who have “attained at least upper secondary education” is, according to the OECD, fairly even across Western industrialized countries, with Canada, at 92 percent, having one of the highest completion rates. In comparison, the percentage of Americans who graduate stands at 89. In both Turkey and Mexico it is 46 percent.[2]
Japan and Germany have higher and more standardized academic accomplishments, as do South Korea, Finland, Singapore, and Taiwan. In China, a country that has made massive investments in high school education over the past thirty years, educational fraud and manipulation of transcripts is so widespread as to make it difficult to assess educational achievement. Many Chinese proudly carry high school diplomas that provide no assurance that they have the abilities and learning that have, since World War II, been associated with a high school degree. But, of course, the same is true in the United States.
College and university education is now replicating the high school experience. A new focus on higher education has occurred as job opportunities for high school dropouts have declined and opportunities for high school graduates have shrunk in the face of the collapsing power of trade unions and the disappearance of traditional low-skill/high-wage work. Naturally and inexorably, governments, parents, and young people have begun to focus on post-secondary education.
The inflation in education has been steady. Before 1920, most students stopped their studies after elementary school. Before the 1960s, they stopped after high school. In the last third of the twentieth century, in a fit of educational optimism that gripped much of the world, attention shifted to community colleges, colleges, and universities, with the latter representing the gold standard for those who felt that they had the skills, determination, and ability to prosper. A quick look at the same industrial nations illustrates the degree to which college and university preparation swept the wealthiest countries.
As with the high school systems after World War II, the colleges and universities took in many more students than they graduated. The percentage of those not finishing increased over time, primarily because the standards of the advanced educational institutions proved to be less flexible than the high schools’. This is an important point. Governments rejoice that 90 percent of the population has at least a high school education, but we may ask this question: How much of an achievement is it to earn a qualification that nine-tenths of the population also earns? High school graduation is almost universal in a country such as Canada and even more so in Scandinavia, South Korea, Singapore, and Japan. Largely because of public, government, and parental pressure, high schools have lowered educational standards to ensure more students graduate—literate and numerate or, in the case of all too many, not. For the time being (with variations between institutions), colleges and universities have maintained higher academic standards and resisted the pressure—also from the public, governments, parents, and students—to pass those who fail to meet clear and objective standards of academic achievement.
Higher Education Generates Mixed Reviews
Not surprisingly, universities generate mixed reviews. Some people, like President Obama, believe that universities are central to personal success and national prosperity. Enthusiasm is particularly strong among organizations of university presidents and teachers. Andrew Hacker, a well-known American “public intellectual” and emeritus professor of political science at Queen’s College, New York, baldly states that “everyone has the capacity to succeed at college and benefit from what it has to offer.” “All young people,” he says, and he puts the word in italics, have “knowledge-thirsty minds that can be awakened and encouraged to examine the world they inhabit.”[3] Others are more skeptical and are beginning to question the contribution that those currently being urged to get a degree will make to economic, social, and cultural success. Angela Merkel, solid where Obama wanders into the fantasy world of Garrison Keller’s Lake Wobegone (where everyone is above average), demonstrates the uncertainty and caution of a thoughtful leader:
We have committed a lot of resources to increasing interest in mathematical, engineering and scientific training courses, and will continue to do so. We have too few students, rather than too many, in these subjects. If we wish to maintain prosperity and living standards in our countries, it thus behooves us to encourage the enjoyment of science education. Taking a degree in the natural and engineering sciences is considered to be rather precarious. In terms of career prospects, experience has repeatedly shown that whilst the take-up of people trained in these professions is very good during economically buoyant periods, during a recession these people will experience considerable difficulties in finding a job. This is why it is also the job of business and education institutions to ensure there is a permanent shoring up, so to speak, of career prospects for graduates from the mathematics and natural science disciplines. Scientific knowledge has a very short sell-by-date, which is why we cannot afford to have gaps in the provision of qualified scientists.[4]
A smaller number are increasingly skeptical about university education. Few are as blunt as Simon Dolan, United Kingdom multi-millionaire high school dropout and author of How to Make Millions Without a Degree: And How to Get By Even If You Have One:[5] “I feel University only prepares students for a very specific set of circumstances. I’m not sure if it robs them of life skills, but it certainly delays the point at which they attain those life skills. By life skills, I mean work skills, be that in an office or in a factory or whatever—the key is that work skills can only be learned through real work. These are skills that you don’t learn from a book; you learn them by getting out there and doing them.” Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, has gone a step further, offering to pay young people $100,000 to not attend university for two years and instead to pursue their business ideas. As Thiel, who believes that universities are oversold and headed for a crash, told TechCrunch in 2011, “A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed. Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.”
The more young people who go, or who ponder going, to college, the louder the debate grows. On one side, people claim that those with
