Cal State Hopes to Stem Dropouts

Cal State University’s dropout woes won’t be solved by requiring four more high school courses for admittance (one more in English and math and two new ones in a language). This additional dry-bone drilling in the narrowly defined “basics” and the inclusion of foreign language study--however valuable in itself--will simply prevent fewer marginal students from entering, so fewer will drop out. Its effect is to shrink the system without improving or changing it, excluding a greater proportion of minority students in the process.

Two key sources of the astronomical dropout rate are the complete devaluation of higher education into job training and the economic and social pressures on students to work while studying.

Education as mere careerism becomes fully realized in the Cal State University system because it is the most responsive to the upward mobility aspirations of those it serves. Curriculum follows demand on a market model, with “pre-professional” majors now topping the chart. These programs are typically both dull and demanding, and many drop out. Still others only measure the value of their degree by its economic advantages, and since this factor has slipped in the last 10 years, these students see little need to finish each part of their career training.

Society no longer seems willing to educate itself, with people disturbed and stirred by the arts and literature, changed by history and science, moved by music, words, images and compelling ideas of great thinkers. This sort of thing is passe, and the symbolic value of completing such a course of study is lost. Without its transforming aspect, its power to engage, de-mystify, inspire and activate latent potential, education becomes a pointless affair, not worth the effort.

This attitude feeds another--that work is the prime value, even for the young.

Students now work 20 to 40 hours a week--not on studies, but on an outside job. This is a far cry from demanding that young people get a taste of the “real world” before entering it. Students have no time for reflection, for detailed concentration, no time to be imaginatively stimulated by the arts and science courses they are required to take. Their meaningless work sweeps them into destructive patterns: They buy a car, need insurance, get an apartment, charge things, accumulate debts, work more hours and run ragged through their overscheduled, precious days. Students at 17 ape the debt-ridden frenzy of their exhausted, troubled parents.

There are only a few ways to break this accelerating cycle:

--Students must give college their top priority.

--Parents and students must reach some reasonable accord that permits students not to work during the school year.

--Government must provide assistance so students do not have to work.

--Legislatures must reduce class size and budget time for faculty to counsel students on a regular basis.

--Faculty must talk to students, encourage them, and deal with daily life patterns that distract students from study.

--Employers must respect degrees from all areas of the university and tell their personnel managers that well-rounded graduates make the best employees.

--Colleges and universities must transform themselves into counters to the frantic, short-sighted, work-addicted society at large and instill deeper values than competition for success, fame and fortune into the consciousness of the young.

Adding more requirements at the high school level simply allows more to fall behind sooner. This follows the national pattern, exacerbated in the Golden State, of scapegoating the young for adult failures to invest time, energy, dollars and passionate attention in the young. Our per capita support of students, which is among the lowest in the nation, our crowded classrooms, our obsolete equipment and tattered texts, our decrepit high school campuses, all speak glaringly of our “values.” Who here are the “dropouts”?

ROBERT CHIANESE

Northridge

Chianese is a professor of English at Cal State Northridge.