Of course I can’t remember the source, but I remember reading a history of education that made an arguement abou the main reason for education being keeping people out of the workforce until the workforce is ready for them. When we were a mainly agricultural and industrial society, we needed young people to work early and often. Therefore young men stopped their schooling early (and during harvest or planting seson). As the workforce became more flooded, a high school education became required, now we don’t seem to need younger people in the workforce, there is no plac efo them. Therefore, we are moving toward a college degree (or at least some form of advanced or vocational eduction) as being expected.

If this argument is true, and I think it is convinving (much more so when I read it than when I re-told it), I wonder what the impact of losing the baby boom generation and our lower birth rate will be? Will we revert to requiring less education of our children because they will be needed in the work force??

Susan Ryan, I had never thought of it that way, but you are right. The lowest paying jobs are often those with direct contact with the “customer.” I remember even working at Burger King, I used to wonder how much the business could be improved if the corporate structure weren’t so top-heavy.

It is nice to be able to tailor our children’s education to their talents and interests. My daughter wants to be a vet, and with her strengths in math and science, I don’t think that is unrealistic. We aren’t doing much in that direction at the moment, other than using it to aid in motivation for other subjects, but we have begun talking about opportunities if she decides she is serious.

Volunteering at the Humane Society, the zoo, etc. All things she will have time for in order to explore the field and gain experience.

Renae, I know what you are talking about. : ) I don’t mind that when someone looks at the applications of three different applicants, they are going to look more closely at the one with a degree in a related field. That is natural, and the greatest benefit of college.

What I don’t really understand is when someone is working for you and has demonstrated competence in the field why it is some will say, “I’d love to promote you, but you need a degree in the field.” Hasn’t the person proven themselves at that point?

And Emily, one need only look as far as Bill Gates to see that there are other paths to success. Success in society’s terms, anyway. I don’t know that you can say that someone in a fast food job isn’t successful…one of my managers absolutely loved his job. It is all he had ever wanted to do since he first started working at BK as a teenager. He was working toward his own franchise.

In fact, in my economics class, we worked out the economic costs of college. And I found out that it was economically better for me to remain at Burger King than it was to go to college. While my degree promised three times the starting wage, I was already beyond the starting wage and had already turned down promotions. Had I sought them, the four years I would have put into the business would have probably put me on equal footing (salary-wise) with others with an education degree.

The statistics about lifetime earning can be misleading. You have to consider that aspect of “finishing what you start” that one of my managers noted. A lot of people with “only” a diploma, GED or not even that change jobs frequently, barring themselves from really ever working their way up. If that isn’t you, the income potential is far greater, I’m sure, although I do not know the actual statistics.

That disconnect between expectation and reality is a little scary. Between that and the way kids are spoiled with material goods, I worry about how this generation will fare as adults.

One of things I love about homeschooling is that I can work with my kids to prepare them for the future that is best suited to each of them, and that they want.

While I am mindful of how what we do will translate into college (such as what math we do each year in order to keep them on target), I also want to expose them to other opportunities while I have them under my roof, in case they do not end up going the college route.

I love having the flexibility to work to their strengths.

I remember reading somewhere, maybe the Callihan’s website, about how many required first year classes are remedial (another word for ‘waste of time’ for the average HSer). I can’t imagine taking four years of English, and then having to take another year of it in college because you didn’t get it the first four times?

Schools have gotten into the business of advertising that certain degree levels automatically assure specific skills. They have, to some extent, become more job training (used loosely) institutions rather than educational institutions.

This could become more of a problem in the future, as capable people who are not college educated get shunted into low-skill jobs rather than career-track employment. This may also be a problem in certain fields, such as nursing, in which education has become more important than skills. My mother, a nurse for over 50 years, received her RN at a three-year hospital based school. She says she is now supervised by nurses with a BS who have little skill with patient care and whose knowledge is so theoretical that patient care has declined.

There are a host of issues engendered by making college the new high school.

Now, within a few years I worked my way up into a much better paying job. I would likely be making six figures now had I continued my career rather than leaving for full-time homemaking. So college did ultimately pay off for me financially. It also presumably helped my financial status indirectly by introducing me to my DH.

While I benefited from attending college, I don’t think that everyone does. Many college graduates who wind up stuck in low-level white collar jobs would’ve been better off with training in some skilled trade instead.

I’m going to strongly encourage my kids to do some sort of post-high school education/training. But that doesn’t necessarily mean going to a 4 year university. I’d be just as proud of my mechanically-inclined DS completing an apprenticeship and becoming a skilled tradesman as I would be if my highly verbal DD graduated law school.