College Seats for 75,000

Warning: The following column contains neither satire nor humor. Any such interpretations could be denial of the senseless, egregious inequities in U.S. higher education today.

Eureka. I need thousands of seats at four-year colleges for community college students. And the seats are right under my nose – all the undergraduate spots at the Ivies and all the seats, period, at the four-year Self Described Most Highly Selective Elites (”elites” hereafter). How? Easy, and everybody wins.

Next month, at graduation and all graduations thereafter, the top high schools – Riverdale, Brearley, Exeter, Andover, Scarsdale High School in the East, and Lafayette High School and Thacher School in California -- award bachelor’s degrees. These are the students finishing high school with wheelbarrows full of Advanced Placement college credits and equivalent courses.

Why? I need these seats for the students lined up outside my door this winter at Bunker Hill Community College, most of whom have ample ability but little hope of an elite spot worthy of their dreams. Why are the odds so against the students at my door? Because the AP-laden students already have the elite seats, to redo an education they already have.

U.S. higher education needs what the MBAs call a discontinuity, an iPod-style move by someone to flush out at least a few of the inequities. Hit the “Refresh” button. The elites brought this situation on themselves, by cramming down admissions standards requiring that incoming students already have the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree in the first place. In one move, all the students preparing for the Ivies and the elites don’t have to apply to college at all, and students who today don’t dare to dream of attending a great college can go.

Lord knows, I’ve tried to remedy all this. In my (as yet) unsuccessful bid for the presidency of Williams College, for example, I proposed that Williams offer a master’s degree for the regular students and a Ph.D. for students who complete an honors thesis. Nothing doing on that from Williams. So far.

Last winter, the formidable and impressive Independent Curriculum Group, a consortium of public and private secondary schools trying to build a better mousetrap, invited me to join a conversation about how these schools can reclaim their curriculums from the demands of elite admissions. That’s when I realized that trying to persuade the elites to change is futile. As long as the Common Application brings these colleges terabytes full of overqualified students willing to beg, borrow and scrounge $50,000 a year in tuition and fees, what’s the incentive to change? Nothing. High schools have to take back the curriculum on their own. “Go for it. Award a B.A. yourselves. Who’s to stop you?” I exhorted the audience.

The sic probo, as the academics say, is a snap. What self-respecting accreditor would deny a bachelor’s degree to these AP-laden students? Take samples of student work at these secondary schools, even from the bottom of the class, AP or not -- papers, essays in foreign languages, lab write-ups and math exams. Match this work with a random sample of student work from college seniors around the nation, even at the elites. If even I have seen high school work that stacks up, the faculty of these secondary schools certainly know that what they have taught their students by senior year beats what, sadly, too many bachelor’s-degree-receiving graduates have learned.

The outrage is the total feasibility, not the outlandishness, of my bachelor’s proposal. Everyone reading here knows that for these AP high schools a bachelor’s degree reflects the academic achievement of the graduates far more than the high school diploma these students are about to receive. Is this situation just? No way. For the sake of a few thousand students in community colleges, could we at least admit the folly in sending the most fortunate cohort of students to college twice, while millions of others, just as able, may never finish college at all?

I explained all this at the ICG conference. These fine secondary-school teachers offered a few laughs. No takers on my proposal. Nothing new there.

Three successive principals of Exeter, my school, have refused to consider my bachelor’s-degree idea, no matter how polite my presentation. On the drive home, I realized I’d failed at even the basics of the persuasive skills I try to teach in my own expository writing classes at Bunker Hill Community College. What does a principal care? Principals have good salaries, secretaries, great parking and often a house. The current system works for principals. Serves me right. The principals, like the elites, are the wrong audience, too.

I had forgotten to follow the money. So, who wins under my proposal? First, the teachers at these public and private secondary schools. Delivering a bachelor’s degree by 12th grade is worth a big raise. To pay for the raises? Private schools can charge more. School districts with these high schools can raise taxes. As noted, based on work quality alone, these public and private secondary schools will have no trouble receiving accreditation to award bachelor’s degrees.

Then, parents will jump for joy at a bachelor’s degree at the end of 12th grade – saving $100,000 to $200,000 in college tuition. As long as no one is greedy, teachers can have this raise and still save families a bundle. Your students won’t need to go to college, and that opens up all those seats for a few of the community college students with few choices ahead.

Anticipate objection, I tell my students. OK, who could object?

Certainly not anyone in higher education. In a tough economy, my proposal means more dues-paying members for the powerful higher education trade groups, such as the American Council on Education. Heck, even the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, which seems to oppose everything, would have a hard time turning away this many new members.

Do I mean to send these 18-year-old bachelor’s-degree-wielding men and women out into the world to work at places like banks? Well, aren’t most of the top malefactors of Wall Street, the graduates of these same elites? What’s to lose? The Ivies, the public flagships, and the rest of the self-described most-highly selection colleges account for -- depending on where you draw the line -- maybe 75,000 undergraduate seats. All of these AP-laden students -- set them free now.

For most of history, physical adulthood has begun expected adulthood. Civilization has allotted “youth,” and bright college years, to only a very few. What have we done with our gift of youth? On our watch, so far, we are responsible for global warming, two wars, the economy and letting most of the U.S. public education system fall to ruin.

Still, someone reading this will object. Fair enough. Explaining your objections to your colleagues at the elites is too easy. I invite you to make your case to the students at my door at Bunker Hill and the other 1,177 community colleges.

Who else is the audience for your objections? Students waiting in line here and at the other community colleges. That’s one student, jailed, beaten and tortured in Africa. A single mother, beaten and cigarette-burned, who asked me the other day, “What do you know about Plato’s Apology?” Or the construction mason, who has read every book I know. An authentic Jude the Obscure, but botched surgeries from work injuries keep intruding, and he can’t work and finish school. A wounded Iraq veteran. A woman who apologized for missing class – “My boyfriend was murdered, and the memorial service was that day.”

Do these students have the intellect to succeed at the Ivies and the elites? Judge for yourself. Sometimes I wonder what Walt Whitman would make of the voices at community colleges. From time to time, I ask students to write their own version of Whitman’s "I Hear America Singing." We don’t spend time on Whitman first. I just say that they can choose another verb. I hand out a copy of Whitman’s poem. That’s it.

If you object to my proposal, what case would you make to these two students?

I Hear America Texting
Zelideth Rivera

I hear America Texting, the different finger speeds at work.
The bankers texting about the market system.
The politician texting for his donations as he smiles@people.
The father texting, who has the game on their big-screen T.V.
The mother texting her friends for the ingredients for a
quick dinner for five.
The kid texting his buddy, so he can copy his homework.
The girl texting her BFF, telling her about the cute boy
in class.
I even hear the toddler texting as he pretends to
text like mommy.
Quick, fast, smooth, easy finger strokes, all to get the
Message through. All day and night even on your 15-minute break
America is texting and getting its message through.

I Hear America Crying
Tatiana Baez

I HEAR America crying, the varied carols I hear;
Those of single mothers -- each one crying to sleep at night as they try
and brainstorm new ways to make ends meet;
The little boy crying out for a father figure, someone who he can look
upto, and teach him how to become a man;
The addict in every family crying as he or she struggles to stay clean
just so that he or she can win back custody of their child;
The young teenage mother crying hoping she will be able to graduate
high school and not become another teen statistic;
The father behind bars crying as he tries to explain to his only daughter
how come daddy isn’t home;
The insecure girl within all of women crying as we struggle daily to learn
how to love ourselves unconditionally
The awful cry of the single mother – or the little boy – or the addict –
Each crying about what eats up at them;
The day what belongs to the day – at night, the party of young fellows,
upset, disappointed,
Singing with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

Thus, I prove?