>Remove the social stigma of not going to college. Hardly any tv shows that show young non college grads as positive.
Or just make college useful and accessible. Give people the option of a European style undergrad where there is no liberal arts breadth, only technical courses. If we had accredited colleges doing 3 year bachelor degrees in STEM, the system would be much more efficient.
That works in Europe because k-12 is more rigorous and you have to test into university. Lots of STEM majors are terrible at reasoning and writing, so I don't think skipping the liberal arts section would be helpful.
If you think credentialism is bad now, wait until the only thing stopping people getting Master’s and doctorates is their parents’ willingness to pay their living expenses.
Separate college’s education and credentialism functions. If the US government says it will recognise anyone who passes X test as having a Bachelor’s degree in X, for some value of X, there will be a reasonable number of people getting four year degrees in three, two or one.
> Or just make college useful and accessible. Give people the option of a European style undergrad where there is no liberal arts breadth, only technical courses
So just turn college into a trade school? All that would do is make trade schools more expensive.
I wouldn't call a "European style undergrad" a trade school. The only difference is that for example a math 'major' in Europe spends 90-95% of their time taking math courses, while in the US they might spend maybe 60-70% of their time on math courses. Thus you can get through the same 'relevant' course load in 3 years instead of 4.
Like what? Are you saying that most degrees, taught at universities today, could be condensed into 1 year, and the outcome would be that we'd have 19 year olds with the same skills as the 22 year olds graduating today? What degrees do you have in mind?
Well, I for one did a 3-year digital media / game development degree, but the bulk of our learning (programming, maths, foundations of game- and web-development and multi-media) was done with after the first year.
The rest was far more focused on project management, 'self-management', scientific writing and project work.
I wouldn't say you could replace all of that with a one-year degree, but you surely could offer a foundation course after which people are capable to go into industry and work on their practical skills. I guess that's kind of what these 'coding boot camps' are doing now (I don't really know much about them).
Something like this would work with some sort of work-school program so long as the person learning is getting paid a fair wage while working (% of the learned person's salary, increasing as time goes on). But I feel trying to sell this sort of thing to businesses so this is the norm is going to be difficult. So sure, if someone can get this sort of thing, go for it.
But we still need the schooling option. For folks that want to start a business themselves. for folks that are getting other sorts of experiences while they are young. People wanting to continue schooling. And so on.
Most vocational programs are multi-year but the later years are work-placement supervised externships, since you can't command a meaningful wage just from your basic training year.
Almost half of the courses I took were subjects like English, History, Health, and so on. I don't doubt the value of these courses but they were competing for time and energy with courses like Linear Algebra and Calculus often to my detriment. I think an advanced degree could be condensed to 2-3 years or 4 years of part-time night school.
If colleges concentrated on 'be able to write, read and communicate', 'understand basics of math, physics, chemistry, biology, finance and IT' there would be no one to pay salaries of professors/teachers/staff/leaches in women's studies, basket weaving, and african interpretive dance departments.
Edit: No amount of downvoting will change that taking a classes in african interpretive dace department that satisfy the "cultural enrichment criteria" needed to graduate is a waste of money. Money spent on fluff and money that will need to be paid back.
Or just make college useful and accessible. Give people the option of a European style undergrad where there is no liberal arts breadth, only technical courses. If we had accredited colleges doing 3 year bachelor degrees in STEM, the system would be much more efficient.