We Are Good, But Aren't We Too Old and Too Expensive?

A lot has been said recently on the decreasing quality and rising cost of education. So far it seems that the remedies offered have neither lowered the costs nor have they increased the level of quality.

Probably it is time to review our existing system of post-graduate education and to examine some features that were not even considered before, like the fact that U.S. education is unique in that we are the only country on earth with a college system. In Canada or anywhere else, when you finish high school you are supposed to be either ready to enter the work force and able to function in an agricultural, a blue collar or in an office environment, or if someone intends to go to graduate school, like medicine, law, or engineering, etc., he or she doesn't have to go to college but enroll straight into graduate school. What does that mean in time and expenses? It means that in the United States, if somebody wants to become a physician it takes a minimum of eight years after he or she finishes high school. Anywhere else, it takes five. An average physician in England, Canada, France, or Germany receives his M.D. degree at the age of 23. Thus, while he studies medicine for one year longer (five instead of four years) the time and cost of his postgraduate education is about 50% less than it would be in the U.S. The same goes for lawyers, engineers, veterinarians, etc. The completion of graduate education at age 18 and postgraduate education at age 23, as other countries do, would not only save us money, but it would add valuable years to the working life of the individual.

A human is at the peak of his biological fitness at the age 28 to 30. That is when we have the keenest mind, the steadiest hand and the sharpest eye. While our youth at that age is usually unprepared, young people from other developed western countries either have already been in the job market for a decade, or completed their postgraduate education and are practicing professionals. The situation is even worse if somebody goes into a specialty or sub-specialty training. As a thoracic surgeon and an educator, in my four decades of professional life I have trained close to a hundred surgeons; or better, I have trained a hundred middle-aged surgeons! After they have finished college at age 22, medical school at age 26, internship at age 27, training in general surgery at age 33, they come to me at the age of 34-35 and say, "Train me to be a chest surgeon!" Most of them are married and have children. They have concerns about their family and they work day and night for a salary less than minimum wage. Because of the strain of their extended training, disproportional numbers end up in broken marriages. When they finish their training at the age 38 to 39 years, few want or can afford to enter academia or spend time in research; but go into private practice to pay out bank loans and establish a stable economic position for themselves and their family. The situation is similar for other medical and non-medical professionals, orthopaedists, architects, chemists, veterinarians, whatever. Are our trainees good professionals? They are among the best on earth! Unfortunately they are also too old, their education costs too much, and their professional life expectancy is too short. This is not good for them and it is not good for America.

I have attended dozens of conferences on education. There was not a single meeting where the subject that "our post-graduate education is too long" did not come up. Many remedies were considered; shorten the time of specialty training; omit the need of some specialty boards, etc. While everybody realized that the "road of graduate education" is too long but nobody even considered that the length could be shortened not at the "end", i.e. training in surgery and thoracic surgery but at the "handle" i.e. spending time in college.

The Germans don't have it, the French don't have it, the Swedes don't have it; thus, college education as is today in the United States is certainly not a "western" tradition. Then why do we have a college system in its present form? The British have no colleges as we know either, although they have non-obligatory "prep" schools for not-too-bright children of the very rich who may go there for a year or two to learn enough to be accepted to an exclusive university. Ironically, our children at age 22 who have finished college are less equipped for graduate school than those who finished high school at age 18 in England, France, or Sweden. Maybe they are not much worse, but they certainly are not any better.

I have heard frequently that our children need time to make the right decision. I respectfully disagree. Our children can make the right decision when it is time to make the right decision. Whenever they are mature enough to drive a car, ready to fight for their country; ready to vote they can also certainly decide what path they want to choose in life! If we let them float around to make the decision at age 25, they do make it at age 25! If they have to make the decision at age 18, they can make it at age 18 just as well. Nothing is more appalling than the fact that for many of our children even after they finish college may spend several additional years to "make up their minds." Somebody may say we are a wealthy nation, we can afford for our children to "drift around" for a few years. If we are indeed so rich, then why do we complain about the high cost of education? Also, while in other western countries young men and women are mature and educated enough to enter graduate school (if they are not educated then they are not accepted), one-third of our young people have to take supplemental reading and math courses after graduating from high school just to be able to enter college.

The main argument for the need of a college education as it is today is that our high schools do not provide an appropriate education in liberal arts and that they do not prepare the graduates either for high quality jobs or especially not for entering postgraduate education. Unfortunately, both are true indeed. Our high schools, compared with other western models (or, as a matter of fact, some eastern models such as the Japanese schools as well), on an average, but not necessarily an individual level, provide inferior education, and a large part of our college education is now used to make up for what the kids were supposed to learn in high school. This is wrong. Colleges should act and be used as advanced schools of education above and beyond high school levels and whoever goes to college should end up not only with added knowledge, but also a with trade with which he or she can earn a living. Why can't we make our high school education better? Wouldn't that make more sense? We complain that the high school education is eating up too much of our economic resources. Before I go into that, I want to emphasize that we should not save on teachers' salary. Teachers are underpaid. But teachers are often underpaid also in other countries where the education levels in high schools are higher than ours. So while paying low salaries to teachers by itself is wrong, it cannot be blamed per se for the inadequate education we provide to our high school students. Could it be spending more money on buildings and equipment would be the answer? There are several examples that have proven that the installation of new gyms, modernization, different federal programs have only modest effect on school performance. Teachers' work and a different attitude of students toward learning make the difference. Do we build enough new schools? We may be building too many new schools! As we build them our schools are not holding up. Go anywhere in Europe, especially in England; they build schools to last. They are made of stone, the walls are painted to discourage graffiti, the students sit in benches made of solid oak. Our schools are made out of plywood, the furniture is plastic, the walls are an open invitation to serve as a "canvas" to those who wish to deface them.

I know that I am on dangerous ground even suggesting that our college system as it is today is not essential and that our children should be mature enough to enter graduate school without college experience. But we have come to a crossroads in the history of our education where every possibility to decrease the ever rising costs and to improve the declining quality of our education should be addressed, including changing radically our undergraduate learning system.