We should stop advising students to go to college.

I get it. We live in a culture that frankly shames those who don’t go to college. But I’ve come to the conclusion that we ought to stop advising students to go to college unless they have a plan for it. Full stop.<br><br>I teach high school history in a relatively well-off district in the United States. Our students are for the most part capable students who will go on to college and have decent to good careers. Many will have their college educations fully or partly funded by their parents. We have a pretty high rate of college acceptance and I imagine most go on to at least some college.<br><br>When I was in high school back in the 90s it was the message we got: Go to college. It didn’t matter what for, we were told. Just go. It’s a ticket to success.<br><br>I have trouble with this now because I have watched far too many kids fail out of college. Many go in with no plan — no idea what they want to major in, no idea what they want to do with their lives. Many go to college because their parents goaded them into it.<br><br>I’ve watched bright students with promise in the trades go straight to college instead of a technical school. It didn’t work out well for them.<br><br>I’ve watched students who were mediocre high school students barely scrape by in high school only to be accepted to college by the skin of their teeth, and then of course they fail out. And they join the ranks of college dropouts, which is a pretty sad place to be in life if you ask me.<br><br>But nobody wants to say, “You know what? Maybe college isn’t for you.” We all want to believe that with enough hard work and perseverance, anyone can go to college and do just fine.<br><br>We’ve done a grave disservice by allowing this to persist. We ought to be telling kids that college isn’t the only path to success. That there are many ways to get there and college is only one of many. <br><br>In fact I think we ought to advise kids who aren’t stellar students against college unless they have a clear plan. Just because you’ve been accepted doesn’t mean you’re ready, and many colleges are more than happy to take your money for a semester or two before your paltry financial aid dries up and you’re forced to drop out with debt.<br><br>It’s time we had an honest conversation with our kids about their plans for college. It’s time to shed the stigma associated with technical schools. It’s time we allowed students to take a year or two between high school and college — what the rest of the world calls a “gap year” — and not look down on them for it.