School is mandatory, there’s nothing we can do about it, and it’s free. From K-12 we are conditioned to believe three certain things about education, three things mainly, and they color how we view education for the rest of our lives. We are taught that school is one: mandatory, which it is by law. We are taught that school is: free, which because it is mandatory by law, it is provided by the government free of charge. We are taught that school is: out of our control. What we study, what skills we choose to develop, how we allocate our time, even what school we go to, all these are out of our control. School is standardized. It is incumbent upon the government to provide the most uniform education to every child included the most essential knowledge and skills. The three laws of tutelage mentioned above are therefore necessary.

This is what we know from ages five to eighteen. Too young to read and write to adulthood.

By the time we get to higher education, with these laws being true for us for the vast majority of our lives, how are we to understand that higher education has a completely different set of laws, in fact, the complete and utter opposite? I believe it is because we walk into higher education with the same expectations of the essential structure of school that we fail to understand the difference and fail to understand our true power where before we had none. As I’ve already gone through four years of University education, I can tell you these are things we should never forget if we are adult students for the first time or again.

So this little thing I wrote was an assignment for school, but it interested me and I thought some of you may be interested too, especially those college bound or already in college. 

As we all know, in college we earn our degrees by completing a set amount of credit hours. These credit hours prove that we have taken the correct amount of classes and spent the allotted amount of time needed in a classroom to graduate and begin our journeys into the work force. However, many people would argue that the basis of how we measure learning in our higher education system is not beneficial to students or employers in any way. In fact, it has been argued that measuring learning through credit hours is not a reliable way to know if a student has actually learned everything they need to know to be a successful and competent employee.

According to the article, a government study performed in 2007 found that almost 70% of college graduates lacked the skills needed to perform basic tasks in the workforce. A later study performed observed 2000 students from two dozen colleges over the course of four years, and discovered that 45% of them "showed no significant gains on a test of critical thinking, complex reasoning, and communication skills after two years of college" (Laitinen, CNN).

Obviously these findings are more than disturbing. As students, we go to college to further our education, but are we learning enough? If we haven't shown any significant improvement in acquiring the skills we need to get good jobs, are we wasting our money? Are we learning the right things? And for employers, this is equally frustrating. They are looking for competent workers who can sufficiently fulfill the tasks that are asked of them, and if these employers are constantly underwhelmed by the new flux of college graduates and their lack of skill, they're going to have trouble hiring the help they need.

This isn't the only issue with accredited learning. For many of us who start out at a community college with plans to transfer to a four-year institution, we will run into the issue of our credits not being transferable. That means when we do transfer, we'll have to take certain classes over again because, despite having taken those courses already, they do not "count" at our new school. That is not just time wasted, that's money wasted. College is expensive as it is; families are constantly struggling to assure that their children get a good education, so having to start from scratch after spending a few years and thousands of dollars already is less than thrilling.

So how should we measure higher learning? Surely the way we've been doing it has not been effective, so what do we do to ensure that students are actually gaining the knowledge and skills they need to be successful after college? Well, some suggest that we stop counting the amount of time we spend in class and start counting how much we learn instead. This would mean a shift to competency-based learning as opposed to how we've been doing it for years.

To be honest, I’m not surprised that so many college students still have not acquired the skills necessary to be hired nowadays. How many of us actually feel like we’re learning in class? It’s hard to learn when there’s so much stress put on making the grade. It’s like everyone says, school is not about learning anymore - it’s about passing.

Read more about competency based learning here:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/30/opinions/laitinen-credit-hour/index.html (article cited)

"It doesn't end once you're accepted into college."

“The department for whom I work has never, in the 8 years I have worked there, given a part–time employee a full-time position. It is not done.”

“My most recent tax returns at age 55, after solid consistent and award-winning college teaching since 1991, show $37,243. I have no health insurance, tuition remission, retirement, reimbursements for materials/transportation/parking or any other incidental costs, professional development, sick leave, parental leave, or assurance of re-hire beyond the 3 month contract of each semester at any of my colleges. In other words, I subsidize my colleges by providing my own computer, paper, ink, telecommunications, etc. without any renumeration…”

“I made as much money delivering pizzas in high school as I make right now teaching college students, many of whom plan themselves to go on to be educators.”