The Vital Role of Community Colleges
By William D. Green | Thursday, November 23, 3006 | The Boston Globe
I can speak from personal experience about this issue. I have seen dozens of people who would have made excellent and caring physicians and nurses become permanently bitter and angry when they wash out of their educational journey at the traditional “roadblocks” placed in the path of those who wish to serve the sick for a living.
General chemistry in the first year is the only the first of a series of ordeals designed to mercilessly and mechanically create ‘a New Bottom’ or ‘thin the herd’ or ‘sharpen the pyramid’ at key time points in the undergraduate years. The biggest undergrad hurdle (with the highest rate of failure or mediocre performance – which is the same as failure) is Organic Chemistry in the second year, followed by putting those molecules to work in either Cell Biology or Biochemistry (pretty much the same thing under different brand names) in the third. The fourth year is generally irrelevant. Those first three years of grades, and a few scattered test scores (out of fashion these days – but still capable of getting one kicked out if one is graded less than stellar) are the criterion for admission to either medical or nursing school.
The attrition rate is shocking. We would not have a shortage of nurses or physicians in this country without the rampant elitism of this ‘survival of the fittest’ system (which those of us who have been through it sometimes call ‘survival of the meanest’). A year at a community college before taking the premed stuff often means the difference between a rewarding career and a life of disappointment.
The same general strategy is in place for nearly every US profession, from law to business to finance to academia to – well – name it, with hungry foreign graduates lining up for the jobs Americans do not or cannot fill – often because of less-than-perfect grades. Improvements in education and training are the single most important investment our nation can make in its precious and unique human capital. Welcome to the Age of Globalization – where higher education is mandatory…BS
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