Is college overrated? USA Today has a piece by a gutsy high-school teacher (Patrick Welsh; is he ever going to get the hate mail!) who thinks it’s fine that such a high percentage of students from his school are going on to college, but says, “It seemed to me that many of our staff beat the bushes to send as many warm bodies as they could on to higher education regardless of whether the students had the skills or motivation to do rudimentary high school work.” That confirms what a lot of college profs will tell you: A high percentage of students aren’t academically ready for college and belong back in about eighth grade.

Who benefits? The author again nails the truth: “The trend is certainly a boon to the education establishment. High schools like mine, always eager for good press, can boast that they have prepared an ever greater percentage of their charges to move on to the halls of academe. And though colleges blame us in the high schools for sending them kids who are woefully unprepared, they blithely pocket the tuition from such students lest they have to downsize and lay off professors and administrators.”

Without heavy subsidization, could this system continue? Welsh seems to doubt it. I say that it definitely couldn’t.