Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Forget High School, Jump Directly To College
Karen Arenson of the New York Times has found that there are about 400,000 people in this country (2% of the overall higher education population) who attend college without first getting a high school diploma.
This situation, to me, is a mess. Here is 1 student's story as contained in the article:
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Many community colleges and two-year commercial colleges take these students, as do some less selective four-year colleges. At Interboro Institute, a large commercial college in Manhattan, 94 percent of the students last year did not have a high school diploma. Yet most received federal and state financial aid, up to $9,000 a student for the neediest.Apparently, these students can qualify for federal aid if they pass an Education Department test indicating that they have the "ability to benefit" from going to college.
This situation, to me, is a mess. Here is 1 student's story as contained in the article:
She may indeed get her GED but this is the only way she could have obtained it. No wonder our workforce is in such trouble.Ms. Pointer, at Rockland for a year, said she had been reluctant to take the G.E.D., the exam that could have earned her an equivalency degree, because she had heard that it was difficult.
"And if you don't pass it, you don't have anything," she said. "I guess it was really a big fear of failure."
Going to college, she said, was far better. "This way, I am going to class, learning from it, studying for it," she said, "and when I pass and I have enough credits, I automatically get my equivalency diploma."
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