Kids end up there because they're in danger of not graduating on time, and it often can take a couple of years for them to finally figure out what they need to do to graduate. So, those sophomores maybe didn't graduate with their class but the year after or from a different school. It's a highly mobile population, usually, as well.

I was the writing coach in our local (amazing) alternative high school for a year and a half. I think it's awesome that they graduated that many and got them into four year colleges/universities. That was one thing we talked about some was the fact that we had college prep kids in the school who needed to be pushed. The plans were, in a few years, start a school-within-a-school for the honors/college prep kids who needed a faster track or to be pushed and challenged and then helped with college applications, etc.

a college degree. Of any kind. Ever.

Then I could start talking about college prep.

Seriously. Even the best college prep schools have tons who don't graduate from college for whatever reason. All we can do on the high school level is help them get the opportunity. What they do after that is up to them.

I worry about personal happiness. Until we can get a long term study showing what leads to personal happiness to the end of life, we know only personal or anecdotal experiences that worked for us or others, assuming that we're happy.

So I wish we'd stop the pretense that we know what IQ measures, what the various standardized tests actually measure and whether it matters or not, and actually do the work to find out what we should be doing, and whether or not that has anything to do with college.

And I assure you that nearly nobody wants to know that. Might interfere with their paychecks.

They may decide to drop out in high school but later on decide to get their GEDs and go to college, while others do just fine without college. Or they graduate from high school but wait until years later to go back to college, like yours truly did?

Why decide when people are four years old what they will be allowed to achieve in life by steering them in one direction or another?

Got a full ride to Aggieland. No one in my family had ever finished high school, much less college. I finished four years without a degree and went to work. Banks, insurance sales, carpentry, wellhead repair, antique furniture restoration, and finally, back to college 20 years later. Been teaching ever since. Love it. Earned a Master's degree in 17 months.

At 61, I'm happy and healthy and pretty sure that I had to take all those steps to get here.

Yes, we do cut off options entirely too soon.

Many people find when they are younger they just don't have the maturity to go through four more years of schooling, or they are simply tired of doing it. I know it was that way with me and went back when I was in my thirties. It took me fifteen years to finish up the undergraduate degree and get my master's. I was working full-time during most of it.