Michelle Obama says high school not good enough, 'you have to go to college'

The Washington Examiner's Washington Secrets ^ | April 17, 2014 | Paul Bedard

[2ndDivisionVet]

Having a high school diploma isn’t good enough to make it anymore, first lady Michelle Obama warned high school and college students at Howard University.

“No longer is high school the bar. That is not enough in today’s globalizing economy. You have got to go to college, or get some kind of professional training beyond college,” she said Thursday.

It was the first of what is likely to be many more speeches on education as the first family readies for retirement and takes up helping younger Americans, especially blacks get a leg up.

“One of the things that Barack and I are focusing on and will be focusing on for the rest of our lives, quite frankly, is making sure that young people understand the importance of an education. And that means education beyond high school,” she said.

A new Pew Research poll found that there was a big earnings gap between those with a high school degree and those with a college certificate. Pew said that those who only graduated high school earned 62 percent of a college graduate.

At Howard she was promoting the president’s goal of getting back to being the nation with the most college graduates in the world. “It’s called his North Star Goal,” said the first lady. “We were at the top years back, but now we’ve fallen very far behind the rest of the world.”

[taxcontrol]

I’ll take a HS grad with a willingness to learn and work hard over a College grad with a sense of entitlement.

[bandleader]

MOOCHELLE KNOWS!Look what she did with her college degree!She became the BIGGEST MOOCHER of ALL TIME(well, since Marie Antoinette,anyway)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Seruzawa]

Actually there is evidence that going to college lowers your IQ. Certainly after learning “economics” any ability you had to handle money beforehand simply goes out the window. They even teach Keynesian Economics with a straight face. Or tell kids that socialism can be a workable economic system. Both ideas are insanely wrong. Yet you need to pretend they aren’t wrong to get a degree. The false information they tech in college makes people dumber.

[bandleader]

We’ll have the MOST Homeless,Unemployed”College Graduates”Ever!!!!!!!!Some Record,HUH???????????????

[One Name]

Yeah, the college grads now often don’t have the skills we learned in Jr. High.

Sports are a particular peeve for me.

“Shop” or later- “Vo Tech” was like resigning to a lesser future. It actually holds more promise for most.

Now we have legions of males who can’t change their own oil, fix a toilet or figure out how much paint to buy. They can play the hell out of computer games, though.

When they finally get out of bed.

[KoRn]

Look no further than all of the highly educated people with degrees that have flushed our once great country down the toilet, if you want to see just how important a college degree is. Had those people not gotten degrees, they wouldn’t have been in the position to do such things. lol

[Gluteus Maximus]

I was standing in front of the courthouse I usually work in this morning and saw a bunch a Yute with his pants pulled down exposing his entire underwear-clad tush. It’s a common sight there. One place those who love Obama’s Sons might start is to tell them to pull up their pants. I can’t see how walking around with one’s pants pulled down could possibly impress a prospective employer.

[RckyRaCoCo]

...must extend your education indoctrination.

[sickoflibs]

And be First MaMa just like her.

[2ndDivisionVet]

I recently heard that that “trend” originated as a homosexual jail & prison thing. Anyone know if that is true?

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

My grandfather was the largest entrepeneur and employer in our town years ago. He only made it to the 8th grade. Look up the Keller Car, sometime.

[ropin71]

My former boss had 2 degrees and couldn’t run a weenie wagon

[kabar]

I know dozens of high school drop-out, high school grad, GED and college drop-out millionaires and I’ll bet everyone here does, too. In my experience as a sales recruiter, I’ve found that high school level people often make better salespeople. I don’t know what they’re doing to people in college these days, but it’s sure goofing them up in sales.

Anecdotal information doesn't change the reality that the less education you have, the more difficult it is to find employment and good salaries. Of course it doesn't help to bring in 1.1 million permanent legal immigrants annually along with 650,000 guest workers every year to compete with Americans for jobs.

[Mears]

My town still has a vocational school and the following is a treasure in Boston that many people don’t even know about.

http://www.bfit.edu/Academics/Departments

[2ndDivisionVet]

I was making mid six-figures in sales with only a high school diploma in the 80’s and re-created the feat with a BA in the early 2000’s. I was the same person. Neither employer knew my educational background. Wish I had my health back, I’m sure I could do it again.

[2ndDivisionVet]

[wku man]

Horseshi'ite. 90% of the college students I met while recently taking classes had no business in college. They were either too dumb, only wanted to party, or should have been in trade or vo-tech school. Not that there's anything wrong with vo-tech, you just don't need a friggin' four-year degree to learn computer science or nursing!

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[Lisbon1940]

Michelle Robinson graduated in 1981 from Whitney M. Young Magnet High School in Chicago’s West Loop as class salutatorian.

[kabar]

You are in the minority and times have changed. High school graduates are finding it more and more difficult to get a job.

In the fourth quarter of 2013, there were only two working-age natives holding a job for every one that was not employed. This represents a huge deterioration. As recently as 2000, there were three working-age adults holding a job for every one not working.

If you’re a high school dropout you’re talking about 30 percent working. Among high school grads who graduated from high school in the last three years — we do a separate survey of them the fall after graduation — 45 percent of them held a job, the lowest in the last 50 years we’ve been collecting this data. And to make it worse, of that 45 percent, only half of them were able to get a full-time job. Only one in five young high school grads, not in college, [is] working full-time.

We have a huge catastrophe happening among our young people. There is massive unemployment and underemployment. It has huge repercussions throughout our economy and for the future.

[eclecticEel]

Of course, once her husband lets fifty million low skilled immigrants into the country there will be no chance of making a decent wage with a blue collar job.