Wiseblade said:
What you're suggesting is pigeon-holing people at secondary school into government-mandated career paths from a really early age. Frankly, that's really creepy.
No real difference from what we are doing right now with college.
We are basically making university the end-all be-all goal for high school students whether or not they are going to do well. "We gotta get more kids into college" is the mantra. We put up propaganda that tells students, "This is what you make with a high school diploma and this is what you make with a college diploma and this is what you make with a master's and whoops we forget to account for ability bias."
People respond to incentives and the government aid that is out there is a huge incentive. Incentivizing vocational work for some students would not be a huge difference.
Jin34 said:
Not only is it creepy, but ironically what some authoritarian communist countries do.
I would not advocate that the government tell a student, "Okay, you're going to be a bricklayer."
And if someone is steered into the wrong track for them, then they continue to have free will and can try their hand at another path. People who *want* to go to college but didn't do so well in high school have junior college to prove themselves. Anybody can go and sign up for classes at the community college for any reason, from transferring to a four-year school or simply for the fun of learning. That's what they are for.
But if you don't have the ability or the drive, you are going to wash out of the system anyway.