A smart new College Summit paper by my colleagues Andrew Rotherham and Chad Aldeman, with JB Schramm, Jordan Cross, and Rachael Brown, calls dookey on the “are we sending too many people to college?” and “is college a bad investment” debates (long story short: the answer to both questions is no). Unlike those debates, which tend to traffic in anecdotes, extremes, and scare tactics, this new paper is chock-full of fascinating and informative data points (did you know that plumbers with a college degree make 39 percent more than those without?). Key takeaway: since postsecondary credentials are increasingly necessary for family-supporting jobs, we need to do a better job of helping prepare and support students--particularly those from low-income backgrounds--to enroll in and successfully complete postsecondary education, as well as providing much better information to help students understand their options and make smart choices.
The opinions expressed in Sara Mead’s Policy Notebook are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.