America is no longer a smokestack economy. The country continues to move deeper into a knowledge society. To keep that momentum going, we will need a steady stream of well-educated workers.
U.S. students, however, don’t appear to be cooperating – at least not in large numbers. Too many of them are arriving on campuses not ready for college.
The data from the ACT college admissions test are not encouraging. Of the students who took the test this year, the results indicated that a mere 51 percent had a 70 percent likelihood of earning a C or better, and a 50 percent chance of earning a B or better in reading.
Even more disturbing for technological innovation: that ratio fell to 26 percent in science and was 41 percent in math. They did better in English, at 68 percent, but that’s not good enough.
Because too many students are either taking courses that aren’t rigorous enough to prepare them for college or their schools are not focused on serving the customer (i.e. the children and their parents), colleges must spend – waste, really – time, effort and money prepping them. That leaves fewer resources available to take students to a higher level.
In a sense, universities are being dumbed down, which has an impact on high achievers and can keep those who would otherwise be high achievers from getting to that point.
Worse, there is a steep decline in American students who major in engineering and computer science, disciplines that are key to participating in the information age. Meanwhile, there is a rapid increase in India and China of those who major in these disciplines.
The near-term solution is to attract more foreign-born skilled workers by increasing the number of H1-B visas issued by Washington. The long-term solution requires improving the education system.
Making the education process more appealing for engineers and computer specialists by focusing on the customer, and actually doing the hard work of teaching them, is a good place to start. Students aren’t the only ones who have some lessons to learn.