The Brain-Power Shortage

Every year half of America's potential college students pas up an opportunity for higher education. Every year, government, industry, and education unite to deplore this drain on the national resources. Each group also annually asserts that the problem can be solved by spending more money.

The obstacle is, however, not so much poverty as the illusions about colleges which pervade public opinion. Many students and parents think that higher education will not be valuable. Others think that they cannot afford it. Still others are put off by the difficulty of finding and gaining admittance to the right college.

Thousands of high school graduates bypass college to marry early and achieve quick independence, not discovering for a decade that a college degree would have improved their lot. More and better guidance counselling could prevent this disillusionment to some degree. More obvious and perhaps more effective would be industrial publicity. If General Motors spent its millions making high school students aware of the difference between salaries paid the college and the high school graduate, they could induce more students to put themselves through college than their hundred scholarships will ever lure. The pollsters have, however, confused the effort to sell higher education to the public, by reporting that half of those who miss college blame poverty. Their claim is correct, but they have obscured the fact, clearly seen in case studies, that nine out of ten insolvents can go to college if they really want to.

The trouble is sometimes that they are unwilling to sacrifice immediate self-sufficiency, but more often, they are simply unaware of potential employment, loans, or scholarships. A survey shows that three fourths of the students with college potential have never heard of half the programs which could help them. Eight percent of those who felt they could not afford college had never heard of any scholarship program.

The College Scholarship Service is making an effort to remedy this situation, and a book, realistically assessing the means of meeting expenses at various colleges has been long overdue. But publications alone will not solve the problem, as experience with publicity here shows. The facts about Harvard scholarships and aid are available, but capable secondary school counsellors are needed, to put the facts before the student. All too many students pick unwisely or not at all, and finish their education at Fort Sill. The only existing guide is the College Handbook, containing much purple prose but little information. The student wants to know what the college is really like, not what the college wishes to do to society and humanity.

Instead of this blurb, the colleges put out a volume of factual description. How many students of what sex, geographic distribution, economic resources, post-graduation intentions, and ability does a college have? Does the college allow cars, women, drinking, fraternities? How big are classes, what are the academic demands, how many flunk out?

No definite estimate of a student's chance for acceptance can be given, but counsellors could be given information with which to make rough guesses. Colleges have been justifiably hesitant in releasing statistics, feeling that they would lead to a stereotyped student, discouraging diverse applications. But they could release figures in percentiles, showing 33 percent of the students have IQ's below 80, 98 percent are on scholarship, 13 percent are sons of alumni, 98 percent live in Tuscaloosa, and none play football. This is surely better than allowing students to pick the wrong college, leaving voluntarily or otherwise after two months, or even more dangerous, letting misleading cliches like "paradise for grinds," or "football factory" shape the character of the student body.

Neither facts nor publicity can substitute for trained guidance counsellors; half our high schools do not have even one professional on the staff. But these men can do a far more effective and efficient job if they get both relevant information and public support.