Who Needs College?
http://www.aei.org/
Barack Obama mentioned college four separate times in his nomination
acceptance speech on August 29, each time suggesting that going to
college is a default expectation for young Americans. But should most
young people be focusing so much on college? In his newest book, Real
Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to
Reality, contrarian social scientist Charles Murray argues that "by
making a college degree something that everyone is supposed to want,
we are puni****ng the majority of young people who do not get one." If
taking on the notion of "college for everyone" is not enough, Murray
goes on to argue that America's higher education system should focus
on providing an advanced education for the gifted--those who will be
our future leaders. But, he argues, his proposal to transform our
expectations of college is more humane than the current system, since
it affords all students a liberal education at the K-12 level and
allows young people to excel according to their own aspirations and
abilities.
With four simple truths as his framework, Charles Murray, the
bestselling coauthor of The Bell Curve, sweeps away the hypocrisy,
wishful thinking, and upside-down priorities that grip America's
educational establishment.
Ability varies. Children differ in their ability to learn academic
material. Doing our best for every child requires, above all else,
that we embrace that simplest of truths. America's educational system
does its best to ignore it.
Half of the children are below average. Many children cannot learn
more than rudimentary reading and math. Real Education reviews what we
know about the limits of what schools can do and the results of four
decades of policies that require schools to divert huge resources to
unattainable goals.
Too many people are going to college. Almost everyone should get
training beyond high school, but the number of students who want,
need, or can profit from four years of residential education at the
college level is a fraction of the number of young people who are
struggling to get a degree. We have set up a standard known as the BA,
stripped it of its traditional content, and made it an artificial job
qualification. Then we stigmatize everyone who doesn't get one. For
most of America's young people, today's college system is a puni****ng
anachronism.
America's future depends on how we educate the academically gifted. An
elite already runs the country, whether we like it or not. Since
everything we watch, hear, and read is produced by that elite, and
since every business and government department is run by that elite,
it is time to start thinking about the kind of education needed by the
young people who will run the country. The task is not to give them
more advanced technical training, but to give them an education that
will make them into wiser adults; not to pamper them, but to hold
their feet to the fire.
The good news is that change is not only possible but already
happening. Real Education describes the technological and economic
trends that are creating options for parents who want the right
education for their children, teachers who want to be free to teach
again, and young people who want to find something they love doing and
learn how to do it well. These are the people for whom Real Education
was written. It is they, not the politicians or the educational
establishment, who will bring American schools back to reality.
Twenty-four years ago, Charles Murray's Losing Ground changed the way
the nation thought about welfare. Real Education is about to do the
same thing for America's schools.
Praise for Real Education
"'Know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,' said a well-
known educator, albeit in a religious schooling context. Charles
Murray is concerned with the secular world of education, nonetheless
his message is worthy of evangelism: Tell the truth, and the truth
shall make you free of foolish, cruel, and counter-productive
educational policies."
--P. J. O'Rourke
"Charles Murray, arguably the most consequential social scientist
alive, has discovered a nifty formula for fame (or infamy): One, in
lucid, graceful prose describe reality using evidence and logic. Two,
propose policies that actually take reality into consideration. And,
three, sit back and wait for the inevitable caterwauling and
lamentations of those who insist reality isn't real and who swear the
crooked timber of humanity is nothing more than the malleable clay of
utopian social engineers. Real Education follows this recipe
perfectly. Even now, if you put your ear to the ground, you can hear
throats being cleared for the caterwauling to come."
--Jonah Goldberg, bestselling author of Liberal Fascism
"Charles Murray is one professional contrarian who cannot be written
off--not since his first book, Losing Ground, led to a complete
restructuring of America's welfare system. At first Real Education,
with its plan for identifying 'the elite,' may strike you as an
elaboration of his hotly contested views on IQ. But suddenly--swock!--
he pops a gasper: a practical plan for literally reproducing, re-
creating, a new generation of Jeffersons, Adamses, Franklins, and
Hamiltons, educated, drilled, steeped, marinated in those worthies'
concern for the Good and Virtuous with a capital V--nothing less than
an elite of Founding Great-great-great-great-great Grandchildren."
--Tom Wolfe
Charles Murray is the W. H. Brady Scholar at AEI.
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