A college education has long been the entry way into the American dream. Yet unemployment of recent college graduates is in the double digits.

In today video blog, we ask the question, are America’s youth getting the education they need, or just what they want. Few would argue that the U.S. will remain a world leader only if we are the best educated nation, with the most productive workforce in the world.

Yet in less than ten years the U.S. has fallen from first to twelfth among nations in the percentage of college age students completing degrees. This has happened at a time when states across the nation have cut education funding, making a public college education less affordable.

As Harvard professor Bill Symonds points out, that is why he believes students need to be more work ready, essentially getting a bigger bang for their educational buck. But I have to believe this is certainly not an either or proposition. While our country certainly should focus more on occupational certifications, I hope they are not at the expense of courses like history and civics, which give us a commonality and a shared story which speaks to the very heart of what it means to be an American.
Rob McClendon