Better Choices Beyond High School

What are the implications of a college-for-all approach?

BY LISA STEIN

The goal of sending every high school graduate to college sounds admirable at first. After all, a college degree usually leads to better jobs, better pay and better options. Why bother with vocational education programs that train students for work right after high school? Why shouldn’t all students aim high?

The answer is that many students simply aren’t prepared for college. Recent research shows that fewer than 38 percent of high school students who plan to get a college degree actually do so within 10 years of graduating. Of those with poor high school grades, less than 14 percent achieve their college plans. Many of these college dropouts get no college credits and enter the labor market no better off. Like other young people without college degrees, they face the prospect of dead-end jobs that offer minimum wages, low status and little training—a situation that appears to continue many years after graduation. Worse, these students have also missed whatever opportunities existed in high school to help them with job training and placement.

This particular group of young people is the focus of James E. Rosenbaum’s most recent book, Beyond College for All: Career Paths for the Forgotten Half. According to Rosenbaum, professor of education and social policy and of sociology, society is doing a disservice to students by encouraging all of them, regardless of academic achievement, to attend college.

At a time when vocational programs across the nation are losing funding or closing down altogether, Rosenbaum argues that some programs have relevance. Furthermore, he says that high schools and employers need to do more to ease the transition from school to work for students not college-bound. His research may soon have far-reaching effects—the U.S. Department of Education recently selected him to write a position paper suggesting policy action for improving the school-to-work transition.

"Nearly everybody today thinks they’re going to college, but the fact is many have no chance of getting a college degree," Rosenbaum observes. "Students’ plans are unrealistic. Schools misjudge how many students are really work-bound, whether they need help and whether they’re getting help. Students go to college unprepared and flunk out. Then they’re at a loss. High schools have blown it by not identifying what the likely outcomes will be."

Rosenbaum is quick to point out that employers also contribute to the current state of affairs. Companies frequently complain about high school graduates’ lack of basic skills in reading, writing and mathematics, and the resulting negative effects on productivity. However, they refuse to use students’ grades in their hiring decisions. In fact, in the 1997 National Employer Survey the only benchmark employers valued less than academic performance was teacher recommendations. This disregard for high school input helps create an environment in which students don’t have an incentive to earn good grades and teachers are discouraged from forging mutually beneficial relationships with employers.

Statistics point to a youth employment crisis. A recent study found that 58.3 percent of high school graduates who landed jobs were only continuing the same dead-end jobs they had held in high school, while a 1993 survey of new high school graduates showed that four months after graduation 26 percent of whites and 50 percent of blacks had not been hired.

Policies of public community colleges are not easing the crisis. Community colleges offering a two-year associate of arts (A.A.) degree aimed to reduce the academic barriers to college by offering open admissions and remedial courses. On one level these policies have succeeded—enrollment in public community colleges increased fivefold from 1960 to 1990.

But those numbers tell only one side of the story. Rosenbaum’s research shows that 92 percent of students with low grades planning to earn an A.A. failed to do so—even higher than the 86 percent of those who abandoned their plans to earn a BA He discovered that in some city colleges the dropout rate is as high as 80 percent.

"We’re deceiving students by not warning them," Rosenbaum says.

While Rosenbaum sees community colleges as a positive development, especially for disadvantaged students, he notes that their policies have also had the unintended consequence of raising some students’ expectations to an impractical level. If students are assured admission to college regardless of their high school grades, what’s the point in working hard? In a survey administered to more than 2,000 high school seniors across metropolitan Chicago, Rosenbaum found that 40 percent of college-bound students believed there is little payoff to high school effort and that they can get admitted regardless.

Such attitudes usually go unchallenged by guidance counselors, most of whom encourage all students—even those with a D average—to apply to two- or four-year colleges. Counselors neglect, however, to tell students what would be expected of them as college freshmen. When asked why, counselors reply that they don’t want to hurt students’ feelings or lower their expectations. "Many students haven’t come to grips with the fact that they’re not going to be successful in college… Sometimes the only way to learn something is to go and try it," one counselor says.

Indeed, once students with low academic achievement arrive at college, they often face a harsh reality. Based on their high school grades, many must take remedial courses, although they might not know that the courses are remedial. Not wanting to discourage students, community colleges don’t always identify remedial courses in the curriculum. "Students enter and think, ‘It’s two years before I get an A.A.’ Wrong. After one year of remedial courses they’re no closer than before," says Rosenbaum.

Even states that require high school exit exams give misleading information because they don’t synchronize their tests with college requirements. Many students pass their state exam for "high school competency" and then fail the community college exam for "high school competency" and are placed in remedial classes that give no college credit.

Rosenbaum likens today’s situation to a confidence game—students are initially led to believe they can obtain something easily. By the time they realize it’s a false promise, it’s too late to get out of the predicament. School staff members may have good intentions when they withhold information, but it is harmful to students’ careers. "When students fail they blame themselves. They think, ‘It’s all my fault." When they drop out they see no hope in getting a job. They feel terrible going through a job search. The really sad thing is that it’s so easily avoidable."

Rather than blaming students, Rosenbaum believes that a widespread lack of incentives is responsible for the youth employment crisis. He points to school-to-work programs in Japan and Germany, two countries with much lower youth unemployment rates than the United States

In contrast to the U.S., Japanese and German students know that their school efforts are important because their high schools help them get jobs. Japanese high schools are much more involved in introducing students to the workforce, helping more than 75 percent of them find jobs, compared with the 10 percent placed by American high schools. Japanese schools have enduring ties with particular employers, who offer the same number of jobs to a school each year and rely on teachers’ recommendations in hiring students.

"Maintaining these relationships is crucial to a school’s success in placing its graduates in jobs and to an employer’s success in recruiting capable employees on a regular basis," Rosenbaum says. In addition, he adds, teachers look primarily at grades when recommending students, which gives students a clear incentive to work hard in school.

Similarly, in Germany linkages between schools and employers go a lot further than those in the U.S. in paving the way to jobs and providing students with motivation to succeed. German schools offer vocational preparation in which student achievement influences placement in apprenticeships.

Rosenbaum found that some of these practices do take place in U.S. high schools, although they are few and far between, often resulting from individual, not institutional, efforts. Some vocational programs provide good academic skills, job skills and even job placement help. Vocational teachers in particular go out of their way to place qualified students in jobs with career potential.

"Some vocational teachers I met were really good at using employer contacts as an incentive to make kids see that what they’re doing in school counts," Rosenbaum remarks. "They’re saying, ‘If you want me to recommend you to this great employer you have to show me you can do a good job.’ The kid says, ‘Oh, I get it.’ For the first time there’s an incentive for doing a good job in school.’"

The students who benefit the most from school placement are minorities, women and disadvantaged students who might otherwise have difficulties finding good jobs. Moreover, the kids who got jobs with help from high school teachers made more money several years out of school than those who got jobs from family members.

Over the next few years Rosenbaum would like to see a number of reforms implemented. First, guidance counselors need to tell students with poor grades about requirements for college-credit classes and provide information on back-up options, spreading the word on careers that offer livable wages. He proposes that college tests for remedial placement be given in high school so students could anticipate whether they would be placed in college-credit classes.

To improve students’ transition to employment, high schools need to work with employers to help them see that grades are relevant. Schools could also provide assessment of so-called "soft skills"—deportment, attendance, sociability—that employers desire. Above all, the linkages between high schools and employers need to be strengthened, and trusted signals of students’ value need to be devised.

"There are skilled jobs out there, such as heating, air-conditioning and construction, which can be lucrative. Clerical skills will be forever in demand. If kids are good. they can advance in these jobs, which are vastly better than what we assume kids can get, like in fast food establishments."

Despite the obstacles posed by the status quo, Rosenbaum remains optimistic. "I am hopeful that things can improve. The changes we need to make are not difficult. This country is remarkable in being able to respond to its problems."

Lisa Stein (GJ93) is a freelance writer.

Editor’s Note: To learn more about Beyond College for All, contact the Russell Sage Foundation at 112 E. 64th St., New York, N.Y. 10021.

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