Colleges Give Pocket Change to Smarty Pants
CATHERINE CHIANG
Staff Writer
We all know those kids. The ones who ace tests without even trying and breeze through classes as they work on a cure for diabetes. Now imagine them gone, leaving only the “regular kids” in high school while the advanced students go off to college. Less competition? Maybe, but not in the long run.
In Idaho, the idle school-day fantasy of skipping the tedious four years of high school may just become a reality. The state is considering paying their academically talented students to graduate high school up to three years earlier. For gifted scholars who are ready to go on to college, this is a dream come true.
But how many high school freshmen would be socially mature enough to be thrown into the “real world”? Though they may be at the intellectual level of college students, these are still kids. The ideal environment for these 14 and 15-year olds is not college, where binge drinkers and date rapists lurk.
Idaho legislators aren’t content with just dumping gifted students in college campuses either; they’re intent on pushing the fast-forward button on students’ lives. For every year a student graduates early, the state will give them $1,600. What’s to stop parents from pushing their kids to leave high school before they’re ready, just to collect as much money as they can? Tempted by the promise of cheap cash, teens may make the choice to miss experiences, such as Homecoming and senior Prom, that people hold dear in their fading age.You know, the “glory days.”
It’s not just memories these kids will lose—valuable life skills, like leadership and teamwork, will be tossed out the window along with those four years of high school. Having a Ph.D at the age of 20 isn’t that useful if you can’t function with the mental maturity required in the working world.
And what about the rest of us, those who aren’t deemed “gifted” enough to be paid off? We’re left in the same old classes, eating the dust of those at the top of the academic ladder.
Though the absence of the resident smart kids leaves everyone else with the chance to shine brighter, the fact of the matter is, perfectly bright students who don’t graduate early are at a severe disadvantage. In the already competitive workplace, young, gifted graduates have the edge. Being a prodigy is kind of impressive, especially to a prospective employer.
Stack all this up and you have an academic inflation effect. If Johnny next door is going to college in his sophomore year, Mom will wonder why her little angel isn’t doing that, too. Parents, indulging in their tendency to showcase their children, will invest in everything from books to educational videos to mold the perfect offspring. Just another thing to stress out our already exhausted generation of overachievers.
Though this possibility may sound a bit absurd, accelerated graduation isn’t exactly an isolated occurrence or a new idea. Eight other states, including New Mexico and Pennsylvania, are part of a program that will allow high school sophomores to enroll in college early. Even California allows students who pass a certain test to skip high school. And if these states are setting the standard, it won’t be long before others follow suit.
So picture the future of public education in America: kids pushed to their limits and nineteen year-old college graduates with a diploma and under-developed social skills. In this fast-paced world, taking away the valuable experiences of growing up and maturing in high school from our students is ridiculous and unnecessary.
And while raising our standards is good, what are we trying to achieve by accelerating adolescence? Sure, other countries more advanced than we are, such as Japan, seem to have higher educational standards—and higher suicide rates. Stretch the future of the United States this thin, and maybe we’ll have some kids wise—and aneurysm-prone—beyond their years.