I was reading this article in USA Today about financial aid. Apparently, aid increases aren't keeping pace with tuition increases. This is pretty bad. I think of education, as many people do, as a sort of intellectual infrastructure of our country. Without that strong foundation, we're pretty much screwed. And without financial aid, there are many smart, capable people who don't have much money who will be less able to pay for college. That's bad.
Even more pressing, though, is that students should have a strong foundation before entering college. Too often students don't have basic background skills, like reading and writing. Not every student has to be F. Scott Fitzgerald, but I don't think it is unreasonable to ask students to be able to organize their thoughts in written form and write so that it is comprehensible.
I suspect it's cultural. For some reason, I don't think the skills are valued anymore. Sure, there may be some pressure to get good grades, but too often parents and students see those grades as the ends. That's not what they are meant to be. They should only be indicators of whether the student has learned the skills. Ideally, parents should be able to tell whether their children have actually learned what they need to learn, but I think many stop paying attention after a certain point. After all, it's a lot of work.
I think it's critical work. To teach your child about values, and living in our society, and all the rest is very important. But it's undermined by failing to encourage learning, and the skills that a student learns. Of course, it's easy for me to say: I have no children, and am unlikely to acquire any in the immediate future. Still, I see a child's education as an aspirational goal, and I hope to work in that direction if I am ever in that position.
