(2 of 2)
Bird is at her weakest in overstating the financial advantage of not going to college. She plays games with statistics, arguing that if a high school graduate invested the equivalent of four years' college costs in a lump sum in a savings bank and went to work, his lifetime income (including compound interest) would exceed the earnings of a college graduate. The greatest fallacy in that line of reasoning is the fact that high school seniors do not have the $25,000 or $30,000 representing their college costs in a lump sum to invest. Nonetheless, Bird is correct in saying that a college education does not necessarily have much effect on income; she points to the analysis of Harvard Professor Christopher Jencks, who concludes that financial success in the U.S. depends to a large degree on luck and social class, not years in school. As college graduates are increasingly finding to their dismay, college today often does not even prepare them for their first jobs, much less for future financial security.
Bird suggests relaxing the lockstep that forces millions of young people to march automatically to school year after year, from kindergarten to graduate school. She notes that top educators have already called for alternatives to the traditional college education. Yale President Kingman Brewster, for example, has warned against the "assumption that formal education is best received in continuous doses," while proposing that students leave the campus after their sophomore year to live abroad. Chicago Sociologist James Coleman's White House report on youth suggests giving vouchers worth four years of college tuition to young people; the vouchers could be used to join an apprentice program or enroll in a specialty school or traditional college any time after age 16. Clark Kerr's Carnegie Commission has proposed that every high school graduate be given "two years in the bank" to spend for further education at any time in his life, perhaps alternating periods of work and school.
More Options. Whatever the ultimate choice, young people must have more guidance and options than are now available. They should be free of the pressure that demands a diploma from a traditional college and be encouraged to take advantage of the vocational schools, special institutes, apprentice programs and other kinds of training sponsored by business, labor unions and the armed forces. For now, the greatest case against college is that for millions of students, it is the only game in town.