I’ll probably have a lot more to say about the Winters article later, but for now, just two quick comments.

First, we shouldn’t be talking about “sending” anyone to college. That phrasing smacks of central planning, as if government officials know the right percentage of the citizenry who need to go to college. Instead, higher education must be an individual choice. Fewer young people are making that choice, for whatever reason. The fact that college costs a lot and doesn’t seem to do much for many of the marginal kids who give it a try (and lots of those who do, drop out) is a logical reason to decide not to try college.

Second, large numbers of young Americans go through their K-12 years with great educational deficits that make them hard to train. The college setting is not a good place for them to catch up on things they ought to have learned back in grade school but didn’t. I’ll bet that Winters has never tried teaching a college course where most of the students are academically weak and disengaged. It’s an exercise in futility.