Kerry Looks to Boost College Graduates

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news – web sites) says if he’s elected president, 1 million more students will graduate from college during his first five years in office and he will bring a special focus to boosting opportunities for low-income and minority students.

Okay, obviously I think higher education is important. Not only did I spend a total of ten and a half years acquiring my degrees, but the food that feeds my kids is purchased by dollars I earn teaching students at a university.

However, this proposal by Kerry is plain silly. While the idea of boosting the number of minority gradautes is a noble one, not only is it not the President’s job to deal with these things, but just providing money for people to go to school does not necessarily translate into more graduations.

Further, speaking as a professor teaching in one of the poorest states in the union, it is my experience that if one has the qualifications to attend college, there are ways to do so. Not only are community college quite accessible, but there are a number of programs available (not to mention working to pay one’s tuition) to help worthy students to go to school. In other words, I question the implicit assertion in the Senator’s proposal that there aer serious barriers to entry for students who wish to obtain a degree.

And not to rain on the Senator’s parade, but it may indeed be the case that there are currently too many students in our colleges and universities who aren’t ready to be college, and in some cases never will be.

Really, I don’t see the great crisis here.

And you have to love the math:

Kerry’s campaign says nearly half the hike in graduation rates will come from population increases, and he’ll achieve the other half by bringing down the cost of education and creating other incentives to bring students to college and keep them there.

So by this logic, if the next President does nothing at least 500,000 more students will graduate, so his proposal is only for half a million.

I wish the Senator would repeat after me: Presidents don’t create gradautes, Presidents don’t create graduates… He can meditate on that one after he writes President’s don’t create jobs 200 times. He also needs to write a 10 page essay on why Presidents have no control over the cost of education.