When it costs upwards of $100,000 to attend, you better be thinking of what you're getting for your money. Unfortunately in America it doesn't come free.
An investment in education should pay off in ways other than a financial return.
Edit for downvoters: In France, this was the high-school leaving exam (literary track) in history for 2015. Four hours to write an essay on each of the following two topics:
1. "South and East Asia: The challenges of population and growth."
2. "The paths of power: The United States and the world at the end of the 1960s."
(Source: [1])
And this is graded much harder than, say, the A.P. world history exam, which a small minority of students in the U.S. take. Subjects are taught by people who got the highest scores on extremely competitive exams covering their subject areas, often after a Master's degree in the subject.
History school-leaving exam in the U.S.: whatever easy, probably multiple-choice final your bored and undereducated teacher decided to give you in an hour-long class period.
[1]: http://www.lemonde.fr/bac-lycee/article/2015/06/18/bacs-s-es...
That doesn't mean my high school classes were anywhere near the depth or intensity of my college classes. While high school provided me with a solid foundation in all the disciplines, it's not set up to go in depth on specific areas.
As a computer science major in college, I have had the opportunity to do in-depth, semester-long investigations of the Armenian genocide, the evolution of interactive media, laughter in theater, the 2008 financial crisis, Arab history in China, the philosophy of consciousness and dozens of other interesting subjects. These are not at all equivalent to what's offered at even the best high schools in the world and I wouldn't give it up to have a slightly cheaper or more efficient college career.
I'm not sure how generalizable my experience is though. My AP classes were at a normal public high school while my IB classes were at an elite boarding school. I will say that the exams are definitely much better for the IB (they're much more detailed and require actual understanding rather than rote memorization).
Also, I did IB too (got a 7/7 in HL History ;) ), and anecdotally I think it's dramatically easier than the French high school diploma. The History exam, at least, may not be multiple choice but it usually asks about very concrete things.
"1. With reference to one war before 1945 and one war after 1945, assess the significance of either air power or naval power in deciding its outcome."
This is basically a step up from regurgitating facts. I agree it is not as deep as what you will have to learn in a university course.
The questions I gave in my example were much more open-ended and require a lot of independent analysis and synthesis to approach, as well as knowing a lot of facts.
I went to New York University.
> Also, I did IB too, and anecdotally I think it's dramatically easier than the French high school diploma.
French exams are notorious for their grading. That doesn't mean the education actually includes greater depth. Anecdotally, my friends who went through the French education system have a keen appreciation for difficult exams but aren't any more knowledgeable than me.
I don't think you could convincingly argue that an IB-level of education isn't a "functioning" education system though.
After all, even in France you do in fact have higher education beyond high school.
That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about broad "liberal arts" curricula that touch on a variety of subjects. In France, it would be very unusual for a math student in university to take classes on philosophy, literature, etc. (ok, maybe some easy English classes for practical reasons, but that's it)
Yes I of course agree that high school doesn't teach you everything you need to know about your topic of specialization. But a good high school education in advanced European countries is basically comparable to undergrad liberal arts/distribution requirements at average American universities.
BTW, NYU is not typical; it's an elite school. You can't compare your experience there to typical colleges in the US.
I know. There's a reason that I chose to attend college at a US university rather than in Europe.
The point of the liberal arts curriculum isn't, in my view, necessarily to give you a basic grounding in different areas. As you point out, a good high school education is typically sufficient to gain such a grounding (for example, any chemistry I know is from high school). Instead, what a good liberal arts education allows you to do is to explore specific disciplines outside your core specialization. These explorations are not necessarily to give you a general understanding of the field, but instead expose you to interesting ideas in alternative fields far beyond what you'd learn in high school. For example, I still don't know much about theater—but my class on comedies has given me some interesting ideas for how to incorporate humor into a bot I'm developing.
Distribution requirements are not comparable to a "good high school education" in Europe. That's grossly overvaluing the quality of European education and undervaluing American universities.
> BTW, NYU is not typical; it's an elite school. You can't compare your experience there to typical colleges in the US.
I'm aware. But the typical college experience in the US doesn't really include the liberal arts.
And I took a few AP classes that you dismiss as being simple multiple choice tests, which wasn't the case.
The parent was talking about intense focus on stem in college being something he's worried about for his kid, not high school.
these are complicated issues, and pretending one's free and the other's an outrageous ripoff is a ridiculous simplification.
The U.S. is an outlier.
[1] Source: http://www.oecd.org/edu/EAG2014-Indicator%20B1%20(eng).pdf
http://www.topuniversities.com/student-info/student-finance/...