There are obviously many, many good arguments to make about why one should get a post secondary education. Even good arguments on why a liberal arts education makes us all better citizens. There are excellent arguments about the fact that not everyone needs a four year university degree and that we need more training and education available at the community college level. Also applicable research on the effectiveness of middle college programs. The good news is that we are all discussing and debating these issues. The bad news is that reform and re-starts are very slow coming and very difficult to implement. The Economist magazine (January 24, 2015) had an interesting article that included some very relevant information to this discussion:
A young college graduate earns 63% more than a high school graduate, if both work full time.
Only 9% of college educated mothers who give birth each year are unmarried, compared with 61% of high school dropouts. (This of course impacts availability of affordability and access for post secondary education and GED passage. Also greatly impacts the numbers in poverty statistics.)
Also according to a report by OECD and The Children's Defense Fund, people who experience poverty at any time in their childhood are more than 3 times as likely to be poor at age 30, as those who were never poor as a child.
Today almost 15 million American children live below the poverty level.
We need to as a nation address these unconscionable levels of child poverty.