Leave higher ed alone

By Lance Dickie

Seattle Times

America is in the midst of a pointless, distracting debate grounded in a stupid, offensive question: College for all?

Washington Post writer Robert Samuelson caused a stir when he declared it was time to ditch the idea of college for all, which had outlived its usefulness. He writes about economics, which is obvious from his first paragraph:

“It looms as the largest mistake in educational policy since World War II, even though higher education’s expansion also ranks as one of America’s great postwar triumphs.”

Classic economic analysis: On the one hand, but on the other hand.

This country’s greatness is rooted in its ability to create options, not preclude opportunity. Access to college — to higher education — is part of America’s fundamental capacity to lift eyes toward new horizons.

Posing the question of college for all is a contrivance. The people raising the issue are talking about your kids, not theirs. Do they truly have cosmic doubts about the value of a college degree? Perhaps for others, but not regarding the economic and social value of their own credentials — and, of course, for their kids.

America puts its future in jeopardy if it tampers with access to higher education and degrades its universal value for all.

‘I’ve got mine’

As countries from Brazil to China hustle to compete, the U.S. embraces a kind of “I’ve got mine” complacency. Stinginess, with wisps of ideology, sanctimony and social superiority.

Our national conversations have a European echo, even back to the central planning of the old German Democratic Republic; yes, East Germany. Track students and test them in the 10th grade. Maybe university, maybe the factory floor.

America went through another time of sneering about expectations and capacities for those people. June 22 was the 68th anniversary of the signing of the GI Bill.

GIs in college? Howls of protest echoed from the Ivy League down. The vets had skimpy high-school educations at best. Why pollute the socially sacred environs of academia?

Surprise, surprise. America got generations of engineers, educators, accountants, lawyers, scientists and some Nobel Prize winners.

Remember, those who dismiss college for all are talking about your kids, not theirs.

Lance Dickie is a columnist for The Seattle Times. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.