"Remediation Demands Stretching Resources of Community Colleges"

My biggest beef with this article is the notion that everyone MUST attend college to be successful in life.  Not only must they attend college, but the focus is on a traditional college setting, to obtain a traditional degree.  Now I know from experience that the majority of "traditional" degrees mean very little to the real world, having a Bachelors in Vocal Performance myself.  In fact, of the family members and in-laws of mine with undergraduate degrees, none of them are using them in their current profession.  Personally I think the focus needs to shift from getting high school graduates into a cookie cutter system that most obviously have problems succeding at (60% of incoming community college students need remedial classes!) and start steering high school seniors to looking at professions they wish to enter, and directing them to the appropriate vocational schools as needed.  Don't start screaming at me yet - I know part of the American Dream is to have the college experience, and there is such a huge push now to getting everyone to obtain some sort of degree so they can earn more money and be happier people that I think we're missing the point.  True, we want members of society to be "well educated" (whatever that means, a debate for another day) and enrich their lives with the love of learning and pursuit of knowledge - but we also want medical techs, and office workers, and electricians, and plumbers, and so forth.  So why push students who may not realize all the options that are out there into borrowing thousands of dollars to agonize their way through a traditional college system and then end up working at a pet store cleaning up puppy poops for minimum wage?  That's exactly what happened to me, by the way.  A month after graduating with my $120,000 degree the only place that would hire me was a pet store.  To clean up crap.  So let's start thinking realisitcally and stop worrying so much about pushing students through a build-a-bear collegiate system that they've been brainwashed into believing is the only way to reach their dream of a house and car and stability.