According to the New Economist a study done in France in 1968 says that if you pass all the students in public school, that more of them will go to college. And if you make it easy for them to get in to college, they’ll stay there.
Okay. I didn’t read the study. But that’s been done here and I lived with the results for a while. (Thankfully not long.)
In 1979 Louisiana had a law. The law said that if you graduated from a LA high school, you were automatically admitted to any public LA college. Okay. I met my roommate after reading a note she wrote telling me she would be glad to “meat” me. She dropped out before the semester was over, as did half the freshmen, because they didn’t have the qualifications to be where they were.
And if, as the French group did, the first years at college were all passed, what good would that do to the students who get to the junior year and can’t read? Who can’t write? All it would do would be to make colleges get some money. And most public colleges are also public supported, at least in Texas, and that means I’d be paying for these kids to go to college, as well as high school where they aren’t forced to learn anything.
No. I think going to college does not prove that something was successful. Graduating from college and getting a job might be, but not going.
Note: I read later in some other blog that the students all graduated from college and got better jobs than they would have without college. So this isn’t exactly the same as La.