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In the State of the Union address, President Obama said that higher education is an economic imperative, not a luxury. This means, every single family in our country must be able to afford education.

Though such talk gives a lot of effect and makes for political points, there is no proof that as of now higher education is imperative as our President says. Explaining the skyrocketing cost, which is one of the major problems faced by our higher education, many students do not have the capacity for good college work. Such students will do better off not wasting the resources of taxpayers and their families.

Just like how the endeavour to make all Americans home owners boomeranged, college-for-all crusade has also started doing more harm than good. It is time to drop this effort and focus on reality. According to our Labor Department, college degrees are not necessary for most of the jobs in the next decade. This is evident with the fact that in our country, the number of janitors with college degrees has surpassed six digits.

At least one third of our waiters and waitresses are graduates says another study report. You do not obviously require a degree to be a waiter or a janitor. Jobs such as salesmen, taxi drivers and flight attendants also do not require degrees. So, is it wise to spend taxpayer’s and parent’s resources?

Sixty per cent of students in our country doing their undergraduate degree are funded by Pell Grants. Nearly $42 billion was disbursed as Pell Grants in 2012, which is a major expenditure incurred by our Education Department. Originally, Pell Grant was established to help needy and deserving students complete their college education.

Low income students have enjoyed college access through Pell Grants since the time it was established in 1972. Till today, this program has resulted in a fifty per cent increase in the number of students from the low income group going to college.

A study was conducted by Josipa Roksa and Richard Arum on 2300 under graduates. Spanning 24 institutions, this study showed that as far as range of skills is concerned, there was no improvement in at least 45% of these students. Skills taken into consideration include complex writing and reasoning and critical thinking.

Colleges are forced to water down their courses in keeping with those who are unable to master higher intellectual levels. The number of under graduates in this category exceeds that of students capable of intellectual inquiry.

Remedial courses in writing, math or reading is required by at least 45% of freshmen in spite of the washed down courses offered by colleges. We must certainly face the fact that the proportion of our population with good cognitive skills, maturity, drive, work discipline and integrity to excel in higher education is modest.

Look around and it is evident that the secondary and primary education offered by our schools is in a mess. Educationally incompetent are increasing being offered comfortable environment by colleges which are fast declining academically. Need of the hour is not to rope in more graduates but to refuse admission to those who are not competent enough to do real college work. Doing this is the only way to reveal the inefficiency of our primary and secondary education. People will also not be encouraged to make bad career choices.