European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 8, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Degrees of by Robert j. Samuelson Washington Post. A t Here is one message that american College seniors did no to hear from graduation speakers Quot higher education Quot is a mess. The United states has plenty of Superb colleges and universities and Many students get excellent educations but on the whole american colleges Are educationally undemanding and economically wasteful. They Are a symptom of Low educational standards and a main cause. Two thirds of College faculty members say that their schools increasingly teach what students should have Learned in High school. Students do not disagree. About 40 percent of incoming freshman say a main reason for going to College is to improve Quot Reading and study  in 1971, 22 percent said so. The value of Many degrees in the United states is suspect. Nearly 30 percent of Bachelor s degrees Are in Quot business Quot or Quot communications Quot double the rate of 20 years ago. These degrees rarely make significant intellectual demands on students or provide important technical  College or University leaders will discuss these problems candidly. Derek Bok the president of Harvard wrote a 15,000-word report on . Higher education without mentioning any of the facts listed above. College leaders see themselves As the victims of poor High schools this rationalization is at least half backward. Lax High school and College academic standards feed on each other. In american society the badge of successfully completing High school is not just a degree but the ability to go to College a and almost anyone can do s6, the country has about 3,600 colleges and universities. 1 of these institutions perhaps 200 Are truly selective in the sense that they reject applicants. Small wonder that the average High school senior does less than an hour of daily Homework. Quot adolescents Are like adults Quot writes Albert Shanker head of the american federation of teachers. Quot they do As much As they have to in order to get what they want. The Young people who want to go to elite schools must meet High standards and they work hard but the rest of High school students know they can get into some College no matter How poorly they  in trying to give More americans More education we have made College into a heavily subsidized entitlement1. About 60 percent of High school graduates go on to some College roughly three quarters of these go to state schools where tuition covers Only about 20 percent of educational Cost. State Legislatures provide most of the rest federally guaranteed Loans and Grants broaden the subsidies. In 1988 these totalled $19 billion. Most colleges Are obsessed with surviving. They subtly lower academic standards to ensure the flow of students and subsidies. Paradoxically this abets tuition inflation at better schools. People who want Quality or the image of Quality have fewer choices. Not surprisingly tuition at prestige universities has risen much faster than inflation in the 1980s. This situation is easy to change. A Federal loan is the ticket to College for Many Stu dolls. Loan applicants could be required to pass a Tost showing that they can do 12th Grade work. Only students who can handle College should go to College. Stales could shut Down 10 to 20 percent of their College campuses so that schools would not continually scrounge for students. States could also sharply base  and coup to the increases with big boosts in scholarships but to keep analysis scholarships students would have to maintain a c average. These measures would instantly improve High schools. The top or Bottom 10 to 20 percent of students might not be affected but students in the Middle would react to the threat of not being Able to go to College they would study More. Parents would take More interest in schools. We would see real pressure to overhaul school bureaucracies and rules. In the end the number of Pilege graduates would not drop and it might Rise. Fewer freshmen might be admitted but they would be better prepared. America will not of course do these sensible things. Any politician Brave enough to suggest them would be accused of making colleges too elitist and restrictive. People prefer to maintain poor High schools and colleges that everyone can attend than to have Good schools that might Benefit most students they prefer to complain about Quot underinvestment Quot in education rather than face the question of Why enormous investment in education produces such poor results. Higher education now accounts for 40 percent of All . Educational spending $359 billion in the past school year. The country would be better off in countless ways if less were spent on colleges and More on helping the poorest students in Public primary and secondary schools but the Basic problems of americans educational system cannot be cured by a Money educational reorganization or new teaching theories Quot reforms Quot cannot succeed unless students work harder. Casual attitudes toward learning discourage serious students and dedicated teachers. The trouble is that most students will not work harder unless they think they must. If most colleges have Low standards so will most High schools. Students will perform As poorly As they Are expected to. How poorly of americans aged 21 to 25 with Only a High school degree less than 60 percent read at an 11 the Grade level. Of those with a College degree Only four fifths read at an 11 the Grade level. Americans Are engaged in a costly charade. More and More degrees Are passed out with less and less meaning. The ultimate victims Are children. Pretending that they Are learning will not help later in life when either they will know or they wont. Academic oversupply by Louis Uchitelle Nevy York times h hundreds of thousands of jobs once performed creditably without a College degree Are increasingly going to College graduates As american employers take advantage of an oversupply they Are found More and More among the nations Bakers travelling salesmen secretaries bookkeepers c clerks data processors and factory foremen. And they Are shutting out qualified High school graduates from jobs according to labor department officials corporate executives and economists. Many once simple jobs have grown Complex in Large part because of new technologies but the More important reason for the trend toward College graduates is that there Are so Many of them. At roughly 25 percent of the work Force a higher than in any other Industrial nation a College graduates in the United states outstrip the demand for their skills. And the proportion of College graduates in the work Force is continuing to increase. Given this oversupply Many experts including the authors of a report on the american work Force said employers were reluctant to Gamble on High school graduates. In an age when Public schools Are accused of turning out Many illiterates corporate America has come to rely on the College degree As the safest guarantee an applicant has the skills discipline and maturity to tackle a Job. The College degree or even the evidence of it. Having participated in College has become the nations major form of Job certification Quot said William a Johnston a research fellow at the Hudson Institute Quot it is rather an expensive and extravagant sorting mechanism to Send people off to schools to learn skills that might not be necessary for work but it is All that we have right now Quot he said the trend has devalued both the College and the High school degree particularly eroding the value of the High school degree which has helped to open a huge Gap Between the incomes of the College educated and the High school educated. Many recent studies show that the Standard of living of the High school graduate fell in the 1980s for the first Lime since world War ii while the College graduates Standard of living or real wage Rose by nearly 8 percent. No other Industrial nation has such a wide Gap Between the two  wage group has helped to Spur More High school graduates to to to College. For decades Only 50 percent had continued education after High school but since 1982 the number has risen precipitously to nearly 59 percent assuring the nation of a plentiful Supply of College graduates for its Job needs into the 21 St Century according to labor department projections. Russell Rumberger a professor of education at the University of California at Santa Barbara estimated that the Pool of College graduates. Exceeded by 15 percent the need for their skills in professions that require co Liege training among them engineering accounting Law and Medicine. Page 16 the stars and stripes sunday july 8. 1990