College Is Not for Everyone (review)

"The world needs ditch diggers, too." This quotation from the movie Caddyshack works as a pithy and appropriate comment for anyone who agrees with the title of Louis Rosen's College Is Not for Everyone. It certainly gets to the heart of Rosen's point: that there are people for whom college is not necessary or even appropriate, and that we should value the contributions of these people as much as those of a Nobel Laureate. Unfortunately, Rosen is not very effective or compelling in making his case.

The trouble begins right off the bat. In laying out the structure of his argument and of the book, Rosen poses a series of questions that center on the role of K–12 education in preparing the American workforce and whether a standards-based curriculum is appropriate for everyone. What Rosen does is to present a series of false dichotomies and faulty assumptions about the meaning of universal college access, the motives of advocates for more rigorous high school curricula, and the nexus between standards-based education and workforce preparation.

His most problematic assumptions center on the issue of universal access to college. Rosen charges that people who want universal access are making an elitist assumption that everyone should go to college, rather than considering that "everyone who wants to go to college should have the option." A related assumption is that advocates of the "everyone must go to college" myth consider "going to college" to mean attendance at a four-year institution and completion of a bachelor's degree. For instance, during his campaign for reelection in 1996, Bill Clinton made universal K–14 attendance a central feature of his education platform. He referred, however, to the 13th and 14th years as "the typical community college education," echoing the language of George Zook in the Truman Commission report from 1946.

These two points of critique might seem contradictory, but they are reconciled by pointing to another analytical problem with the book. Rosen makes the claim that community-college-based academic prep programs are marginalizing vocationally oriented programs. There is no evidence that this is the case. A quick look at community college degree attainment tables from the 2004 Digest of Education Statistics shows no decline between 1992 and 2003 in degrees leading to vocational training in fields such as allied health professions, construction trades, and security/protection services, jobs which generally do not require a bachelor's degree.

Thus, any advocacy of universal access is likely to mean that college should be here for all who wish to go and that universal access to community college provides either academic preparation or vocational training. Even though many manual labor jobs do not require even an associate's degree or additional college-based training, many do, especially the higher paying jobs that require some specialized skills. Universal access is primarily about ensuring that no person is denied the opportunity for whatever education or job training he or she might need.

Another of Rosen's fundamentally flawed assumptions is his jeremiad against mathematics in general and algebra in particular. Rosen claims that algebra is not necessary for electricians or beauticians, for example—that repairing circuit problems or mixing hair dyes do not require the kind of higher-order thinking that basic algebra helps develop. This is a short-sighted view of the role that mathematics plays in everyday life. Calculating electrical loads to determine the correct number of circuits demands substantial mathematical competencies. Hair stylists who mix dyes need to be proficient with fractions and ratios. People who plan vacations may do time-distance equations, or figure out gas mileage for a budget. The point is that Rosen underestimates the role of algebra in daily life.

There is more to discuss, including some factual errors regarding The Nation at Risk report, Rosen's classification of jobs that do not require a college degree, and Rosen's ignoring America's rich history of auto-didactism and life-long learning that can be...