by Fred Jackson
(AgapePress) – A new report shows less than 50% of students entering four-year colleges or universities actually ever graduate. And it's raising serious questions, given the billions of taxpayer dollars that are being pumped into the system every year.
The report comes from the Council for Aid to Education, and was done for the National Governors Association. Richard Hersh co-authored the report.
He says what happened is that we have increased access to college, but we haven't done very much about the quality of students.
And that points to problems with the kind of preparation students are getting in high school, and with the help they're getting after they get accepted at a college or university.
Backing up the CAE report are figures from ACT, formerly the American College Testing Service. They show the graduation rate at four-year public institutions fell to under 42% last year.
ACT official, Wes Habley, says it's somewhat staggering when you think about the money invested in people who don't finish.
According to Reuters News, student aid for the 1999-2000 academic year totaled $68 billion, including federal loans, subsidies, state grants, and student loans. On top of that, states contributed another $60 billion in direct grants to colleges.
(This update courtesy of Agape Press.)
Rabbi Says Massive Federal Funding Not the Remedy for Failing Schools
by Rusty Pugh
(AgapePress) – A Jewish pro-family activist says one of the biggest problems facing this country is the government pouring more money into a public school system that doesn't work.
Most experts agree the United States has a serious education problem. And Rabbi David Eidensohn says the U.S. government's solution to failing schools is pouring billions of more dollars into it.
Eidensohn says there is a push in this country by the civil rights movement to control all businesses. As a result, he says the elitists of that movement can control who is hired into the business world, through quotas and government programs.
He says they are doing this because the public school system isn't producing people who can earn money, because they are illiterate. According to him, civil rights elitists want to control business to make up for the failure of public schools.
Eidensohn feels our government is giving more money to public schools instead of shutting them down.
“When the public schools produce illiterates, then they just get more money,” Eidensohn says.
“And when a child gets up and slaughters people and shows the public schools are not working, the NEA [National Education Association] comes along and says 'Let's attack the gun lobby.' The great tragedy is that we're spending billions and billions of dollars — by 1980 we spent $85.8 billion on education and all types of training. It doesn't work.”
Eidensohn says studies have proven that parochial schools with almost no money produce students far superior to public schools, not to mention the proven track record of home schoolers.
