Bad Idea of the Week: Mandatory College Applications

SD War College catches some foolishness coming from the State Senate: Senate Bill 67, "An act to require high school students to submit at least one application to a postsecondary educational institution."

My first thought was, "What meatheads dreamed this up?" Oh, they appear to be Senators Garnos, Jerstad, and Ed Olson, along with Representatives Nelson, Elliott, and Hackl. I've heard some otherwise sensible statements on education from Senator Jerstad, but requiring every kid to submit a college application? Nuts!

O.K., now the bill says, "Post-secondary institution," so that means university or vo-tech. Most kids are going to apply anyway. But there are still plenty of perfectly viable non-college, non-vo-tech options. The military is a much better choice for some kids than any post-secondary schooling. Some young entrepreneurs may get much further ahead working than sitting in any classroom. A lot of high school seniors -- a lot more than we might admit -- just don't have any idea what they want to do with their lives and would benefit from taking a year or two to work, travel, and explore life independently instead of going straight to university. I would wager that if more kids took that year or two before university, we'd see drop-outs and time-to-degree-completion decline dramatically.

By senior year, our kids are at the point where we need to give them their choices. To say to them they have to apply to college or vo-tech only reinforces the harmful notion that higher education is just Grade 13, something else the kids have to do before we let them be adults. Instead of pushing one path -- more classroom education after high school -- we parents (not to mention teachers, counselors, and legislators) need to have the guts to turn our kids lose and let them learn from experience.

I know whereof I speak: I went straight to college on autopilot, just assuming that's what I was supposed to do. I had to get there, realize I had no idea why I was taking those classes and spending my folks' money on tuition, and drop out seven weeks into that first unsuccessful semester. Then it took just a few weeks of working construction in the dead of winter for Don Amert for me to figure out what I really wanted to do. (Nothing like running a whacker-packer in below-zero weather to focus a guy's thoughts on his future.)

Making every student fill out and pay for a college or vo-tech app will only lead to more kids not really thinking about what their plan is for the day after graduation. Your choice, kids: State, Lake Area, the open road, the whacker-packer -- your life is what you make it.