Hey, maybe college isn't for everyone

The case is compelling: As good jobs increasingly require more education, college is widely seen as the ticket to personal economic security and to global competitiveness. And the message has gotten through: The percentage of students who went on to college or trade school within a year of high school climbed from 47% in 1973 to 67% in 2007, Census data show.

And yet, there’s an undercurrent of concern about a group of students — sometimes called “the forgotten half,” a phrase coined 22 years ago by social scientists studying at-risk young people — who, for whatever reason, do not think college is for them. It’s expressed by soul-searching parents such as Crave, whose son doesn’t thrive in the classroom. It’s also expressed increasingly by educators, economists and policy analysts, who question whether it’s realistic and responsible to push students into college even if the odds of academic success seem low…

“We’re force-feeding them” the idea that “you must go to college or you’ll be a second-class citizen,” says Marty Nemko, a California career counselor…

“College preparation for everyone is a very nice ideal, but we have a very high failure rate,” says Northwestern University professor James Rosenbaum, author of Beyond College for All: Career Paths for the Forgotten Half.

“If we don’t start letting counselors be candid, we’re not going to fix this system.”