RALEIGH – File this in the “if they were really serious” folder.
Politicians in North Carolina and elsewhere often pay lip service to the importance of basic education in preparing young people for the jobs of the future. In reality, however, they spend far more time – and a disproportionate amount of tax money – on universities, of which, not coincidentally, most of the politicians, their family members, and friends are graduates. Universities also draw disproportionate attention for their cultural, recreational, and athletic offerings.
Based on the numbers, policymakers ought to redirect their focus towards youngsters not headed for university campuses. These young North Carolinians remain the majority – high-school dropouts, high-school graduates who go straight into the workforce, and the third of college students attending two-year rather than four-year institutions. Only about a quarter of those aged 25 to 29 were graduates of four-year institutions in 2007. Despite massive government subsidies, in the form of direct grants and subsidized loans, that fraction hasn’t changed a great deal in 30 years. Besides, the evidence clearly shows that many current university students are unprepared for university-level academic coursework. So, at least for the foreseeable future, the idea of sending additional young North Carolinians off to university is nonsensical. It’s also hard to justify the current system of education finance, which imposes taxes across the board to subsidize the university educations of a minority of North Carolinians whose household incomes typically exceed the state average by a large amount.
So what would it mean to focus more time and resources on the majority of North Carolinians who need basic education, training, and vocational skills to succeed in the future?
JLF analyst Terry Stoops provides a broad outline of such an approach in a recent Spotlight briefing paper. The key elements:
• Increase the quantity and quality of vocational and technical offerings in public middle and high schools, with a particular emphasis on fields such as health care and construction trades.
• Involve the private sector more closely in course design and implementation.
• Expand opportunities for students to find the programs that best fit their needs by allowing more charter schools and other educational choices.
More broadly, as JLF analysts have long argued, North Carolina should dramatically change how post-secondary education and training programs are funded, by increasing the share of the cost funded by students and ending the current practice of redistributing wealth up the income ladder. Put most of the money where most of the kids are, and less money in university subsidies. At the other end of the spectrum, reform state-run training programs that deliver poor results.
Basically, as far as the state-supported education system is concerned, it’s time to end the vocation vacation.*
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation
* With apologies to Walt Disney & Co.