College: Is Rick Santorum Right?

Santorum called Obama a "snob" because he thinks everyone should go to college.  Yes, this is the same Rick Santorum who is running for the presidential nomination of the party that screams "class warfare" at the first hint of any government policy that helps the 99 percent.   This stump speech is rooted in basic resentment of fancy book learnin that attacks the supposed right to impose wrong beliefs about evolution and global warming on America's children.   If you choose to roll your eyes and move on with your day, I ain't mad at cha.

However, at the core of this particular bit of Santorum nonsense is a real debate that the United States should be having.  For my dissertation I interviewed a nationally known superintendent and scholar who lamented the same trend.  He served a rural school district that saw its mission not just to get students ready for college but also to make sure that students stayed healthy during high school and could get jobs after.  In other words, he recognized a real educational dilemma that Santorum's rhetoric only points to and exploits.

At most, only about 60 percent of kids finish college, and the numbers are well below 50 percent for black and Latino students.  We need to do better for these kids, and part of that effort should be increased opportunities to go to school and increased support for students for whom college may be more difficult than the average.  But especially with the price of college going up, I'm not sure that our society can afford to get everyone to college.  Even if we can, we need to ensure that those students who choose not to go to college have acceptable life opportunities.