Broad Encourages Post-Secondary Education

According to Molly Corbett Broad, 120 countries around the globe are growing notably faster than the United States. Put, candidly, the United States is currently falling behind.

Broad’s advice? Seek post-secondary education and higher. “Knowledge is the new currency in the global economy,” she said, yet attaining this higher education is not nearly as easy as it may seem.

Molly Corbett Broad, the current President of the American Council on Education, spoke on Friday, November 14, 2008 to a crowd of about 100 people, at the Louise McBee Lecture about the growing importance of attaining a post-secondary education.

One-third of the current workforce holds some type of college degree and this increase in people attaining higher education is leading to what Broad calls a “hollowing out of the middle class.” While in 1967, 70 percent of the workforce held only a high school diploma, nowadays having only a high school diploma will almost certainly place one in the lower class. In addition, without a higher education, the chances of being incarcerated or unemployed automatically increase. “If you want to get a job, keep a job, and not be unemployed, you need to get an education,” Broad said.

Broad said that coming from a wealthy family increases the likelihood that one will seek and attain a higher education. This statistic refers to an issue that was spoken of several times during the lecture as well as during the question and answer session following the lecture. The issue is helping students who want that higher education attain it. Often times, people assume that a student graduating from high school automatically possesses the tools and skills to do college-level work and unfortunately often times this is not the case. Many students desperately want to attend college and better themselves but have problems being accepted into schools.

For this issue Broad suggests providing a test of college readiness, that will be graded and will identify the student’s problem areas and provide tips of what he or she needs to do to be ready for college. Broad also suggests a GED with honors programs, but said that this issue can really only be solved at the federal level and that she is doing her best to make people aware of it.

As indicated by Broad, “America is at a crossroads.” With many individuals of the baby boomer generation approaching retirement, the United States is facing a tipping point, in which for the first time ever the level of education and success attained by previous generations will exceed that of the younger generations. The only way to prevent this is to encourage higher education. With countries all over the world, including Singapore and Saudi Arabia currently making huge investments in building universities, the United States is doing all it can to keep up.

The current state of the economy is not making this easy. Families and students are constantly thinking about the growing cost of tuition amounts and institutions are constantly thinking about salaries. Yet despite all this, many colleges have protected student financial aid. In fact, despite numerous budget-cuts facing universities all over the country, the one area that is statistically shown to have the largest increase was student financial aid.

“America is at a crossroads,” Broad said. “We must continue to stand tall and remain adaptable and resourceful without losing values.”