In other words, the NYT is finessing the fact that 0bama wants to take your productive fracking job away which actually benefits you, your family, local community and your country and instead simply put you in the unemployment line along with the current college grads? ...What is wrong with this PC picture?

I think this is a very good thing. Work, make some money, learn some life skills and then go to college. There are many adult extension programs at good colleges, where you can get an education but not be subjected to the hooking-up and drinking culture that pervades most college campuses. These are usually flexible programs that allow students to work while going to school. If I had a marketable skill as a high school graduate, I would definitely do this.

Hopefully these teenagers will be smart, planful and importantly save their money for that further education, and not blow it on stupidities that aren´t necessities--videogames and other stupidities.

Like this would be worse for them than burying themselves in student loan debt for the rest of their lives for a degree in journalism.

You´re onto something #2 - there are *very* few kids that wouldn´t be better off spending at least a year out of high school in the labor market. If they have enough brains to actually navigate the absolute money pit of higher education - that year ´out in the real world´ will do either do more to inspire a desire for future success - or wash out that potential money drain for parents of perpetual flunkies...

We´re rapidly approaching the area where the cost of the ´mainstream´ college scenario outweighs the benefits for all but a few.

And it´s pretty hard to take ´higher education´ seriously - when almost as a whole those institutions require ´remedial senior year of high school´ under the guise of Freshman curricula now. Pretty amusing when ya´ think about it - the public schools can´t graduate a passable intelligence product - so Mom & Pop get to shell out 20k (at a cheap school) for ´em to repeat what high school *should* have imparted.

Yeah. Brave New World about sums it up.

I´m curious if the Times has an issue with high school athletes who opt for professional sports over collegiate sports upon graduation.
There sure are a lot of them out there.

"Missoula State University"? How about Montana State University...

I think it would be advantageous to most high school grads to spend some time out in the ´real world´ working for a living, finding out what your real interests are, why you want a degree, and learning some self-discipline before going to college. I teach in one of those ´education mills´ (after having worked out in the real world for 25 years). The students who have been out in reality and know exactly WHY they are in college and WHAT they want to accomplish usually perform better than most students who are right out of high school.

I seen the problem right off...they ain´t unionized to the collective... s/o ....

Forgot to mention, them N´Yawkers don´t know c*ap!

So if they decide to go to college later, after earning the money to pay for it, they don´t have to take out student loans for courses that end with "studies" in the title, thus depriving the government of dependents. Yes, I can see why the NYT sees this as a problem, and I see it as a victory.

Even if they don´t save money and blow all of those big checks on foolishness (like I did..fast money goes fast) Even if they get hurt and lose a finger or two (like I did...they sewed ´rm back on, but my fiddle days were over) They will never whine about any OTHER job being "Hard", nor will they listen to others whine about theirs. They will establish a standard of living that they will be loathe to fall below...even if it means going to college to earn it. Not every Oil Patch worker gets rich...but they By God come home "Men".

I think there is an inverse relationship somewhere here with Jack Nicholson´s character in Five Easy Pieces.

Remember when thArmy was a gigantic education experience? Taught life skills, provided national defense and matured young recruits? Was socially a huge equalizer ? And then the GI Bill allowed for education that actually was earned therefore valued more?..

I think we´re up to our a$$´s in college graduates (or drop outs) with useless, worthless college degrees in Tibetan Poetry, Sociology, "Gender and Ethnic" studies, "Community Organizing", Philosophy, etc., etc.

We could use a few more plumbers, electricians, engineers, computer techs, auto mechanics, construction workers (American´s, not illegal aliens, when´s the last time you saw a real American guy building houses or buildings?) Something, anything except another bunch of talkers and story tellers.

I´m a high school drop out that got straight "As" in college. I went on the GI Bill. I didn´t learn a thing useful when attending the U of MN and U of WA and I have only three years of college as of my 67th birthday.

I landed a job as a Xerox Senior Executive with no college, but I aced the sales aptitude test. I sold industrial computers for a company that wanted a EE, they hired me. I´m a museum curator right now and a published author with 21 books in print and 500,000 copies sold. No where did I learn any of the skills needed to land a good paying job in college.

Cheers from Waikiki..........MSgt USAF (ret)

A lot of truth and hard facts reside on this thread.

The NY Slimes is afraid that 18 year old crowed won´t be signing up for black studies, indian studies, women studies, etc. and those overpaid college professors will lose their jobs and not be able to indoctrinate the most students.

Liberals worship college degrees because they think they´re door openers to a government job.You actually do have to be conditioned to accept a government job where everybody is the same and you get promotions based on the calendar instead of merit.The left hates a merit based system on anything because it leaves somebody else behind.

My best students are older men and women. We call them non-traditional students. Give me a classroom full of them any time.

The College Industrial Complex is fed by the high drop out rate of the Freshmen and Sophomores who get a lot of teaching time in very harge classes and ones taught by Grad Students. In other words lower cost per student for the same tuition. They are better off getting these Basic Courses in a transferrable form from a Community College while working or in AP classes in High School. It will be good for the Student as well as the taxpayer. The College Professor Herd will have to be culled.

Semper Fi

College is pricing itself out of the future of many young people. $100k+ in debt for a useless degree and no job prospects isn´t worth it. Besides, you can easily make $100k driving trucks in the oilfield.

I attended college under a Co-op program, working one quarter, there were ´quarters" then allowing half year college and half year work. I graduated with no debt and a better understanding of what I wanted to do with my life. If large corporations want to help students the Co-op program of the 1950´s is a great way!

if these kids work for a few years before going to college, they won´t be indoctrination material for the leftoid professors. and they might do other horrible things like going to community colleges and learning skills without huge debt loads. they might even be influences in the classroom for work ethics, maybe, they will even argue with professors... Oh the humanity of it!

If there were a mandatory two-year waiting period between high school and college, with an actual job requirement for college admissions (much like taking one of the standardized admission tests), I suspect that the college experience would be much different.

Frankly, most institutions of higher learning are rackets.

And what is wrong with that? NYT has no problems with kids out of high school enrolling in the armed forces,to protect their sad arses in totality, but have a problem with this? These kids will become men unlike the wusses at N yT

College industrial complex is absolutely correct. How dare these people not be automatically funneled through the college professor lifetime jobs project for the final four years of indoctrination that sets them on the proper path of government dependency! Actually I heartily approve. They´ll do more for themselves and this nation by avoiding that college industrial complex and becoming producers instead of leeches. Good on them!

Gee, with fewer fashion design, literature, political science, and history majors whatever will this country do?

Check out this chart of in demand jobs and see that a college degree is less relevant than you might think. We need more apprenticeship programs to teach skills that will be really needed.
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/12/only-one-of-the-top-9-occupations-expected-to-create-the-most-jobs-this-decade-nusring-requires-a-4-year-college-degree/

Only competition will improve the schools oand the entire public sector.

It was at an internship that I learned the PhD is a license to lie.