Even so, community colleges are being systematically starved of funds. On a per-student basis, state legislatures direct most higher-education funding to four-year colleges and universities because that's what their middle-class constituents want for their kids.
American businesses, for their part, aren't sufficiently involved in designing community college curricula and hiring their graduates, because their executives are usually the products of four-year liberal arts institutions and don't know the value of community colleges.
By contrast, Germany provides its students the alternative of a world-class technical education that's kept the German economy at the forefront of precision manufacturing and applied technology.
The skills taught are based on industry standards, and courses are designed by businesses that need the graduates. So when young Germans get their degrees, jobs are waiting for them.
We shouldn't replicate the German system in full. It usually requires students and their families to choose a technical track by age 14. "Late bloomers" can't get back on an academic track.
But we can do far better than we're doing now. One option: Combine the last year of high school with the first year of community college into a curriculum to train technicians for the new economy.
Affected industries would help design the courses and promise jobs to students who finish successfully. Late bloomers can go on to get their associate degrees and even transfer to four-year liberal arts universities.
This way we'd provide many young people who cannot or don't want to pursue a four-year degree with the fundamentals they need to succeed, creating another gateway to the middle class.
Too often in modern America, we equate "equal opportunity" with an opportunity to get a four-year liberal arts degree. It should mean an opportunity to learn what's necessary to get a good job.
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