Regarding Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson's May 30 article, "It's time U.S. dropped the college-for-all crusade": It is indeed interesting to read that there are those in America now questioning the wisdom of "college for everyone."
Here in Australia, we had successive governments that all determined — due to their overwhelming leftwing biases — that if you didn't go to college, your education was a failure. The end result was that Australia had a plethora of people with degrees in things such as "arts" but few who could do anything useful. As soon as a country trains more lawyers than it does engineers, it's only a matter of time before there is a big problem.
The time bomb went off in Australia when it was found that there were not enough tradespeople to construct huge infrastructure and resources projects. Then we saw the same people in government who for years had derided the "blue collar" trades saying "what great careers the trades are."
My advice to Americans is simple: If you value people who can build and repair things more than art critics and lawyers, Samuelson has suggested the right path. For the time being, though, your training systems will send you to hell in a handbasket. Australia knows — we already did it. Learn from our mistakes.
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