Opinion
By Larry Sand
10/28/25
The education establishment is dooming a generation to illiteracy and innumeracy.
The percentage of 16-to-24-year-olds reading at the lowest literacy levels has increased from 16% in 2017 to 25% in 2023, based on the latest data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in collaboration with the Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies.
That means a quarter of young adults in the U.S. are functionally illiterate. They can understand the basic meaning of short texts, but struggle to analyze longer reading materials. Yet more than half of that cohort earned high school diplomas, according to the latest data.
Students are no more proficient in math than in reading, as revealed by the most recent Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), an assessment administered to 650,000 4th and 8th graders in 64 countries.
The 2023 results of the TIMSS test, released late last year, showed that average U.S. math scores fell sharply between 2019 and 2023, dropping by 18 points for 4th-graders and 27 points for 8th-graders. Internationally, this ranks the U.S., a supposed global leader, at 22nd out of 63 education systems for 4th-grade math and 20th out of 45 for 8th-grade math.
Not surprisingly, their inadequate education has made teenagers feel lost as they near high school graduation. They are curious about future careers, but their expectations are unrealistic, and they lack understanding of their career options.
Meanwhile, the public’s view of college is declining. Americans have placed less value on a college education over the past 15 years. Currently, only 35% rate it as “very important,” 30% consider it “fairly important,” and 24% say it is “not too important.”
When last asked to rate the importance of college in 2019, 53% said it was very important, but that was already lower than the 70% reported in 2013 and 75% in 2010.
Meanwhile, the percentage viewing college as “not too important” increased from 4% in 2010 to 13% in 2019, and now stands at 24%.
Furthermore, attending college isn’t cheap. Students at private, nonprofit universities pay $58,628 annually or $234,512 over four years. It’s important to note that, regardless of what a college charges, much of the cost is passed on to taxpayers. In fact, there are about 4,000 for-profit colleges in the U.S., and they receive a substantial amount of federal funding for higher education. Currently, taxpayers are responsible for about $240 billion for students’ post-secondary education. Only 23 colleges in the country decline any public funds.
However, Americans’ dissatisfaction with higher education extends beyond the high cost. People typically oppose left-wing political indoctrination, hostility toward Jews, Christians, white males, and Western civilization, not to mention omnipresent censorship and political correctness, lowered standards, and violent protests—all of which have taken place at many of the country’s top colleges and universities.
A better option for students—unless they plan to become doctors, lawyers, or work in other fields that require a college degree—is to skip college and learn a trade instead.
In 1960, just 7.7% of adult Americans held college degrees, but 60 years later, that number jumped to 35%. In 2017, the late Walter Williams reported that one in three college graduates had a job historically performed by those with a high-school diploma or the equivalent. Williams, citing Ohio University economics professor Richard Vedder, wrote that the U.S. was home to “115,000 janitors, 16,000 parking lot attendants, 83,000 bartenders and about 35,000 taxi drivers with bachelor’s degrees in 2012.”
Change is afoot in Ohio, where the state’s House of Representatives is reviewing an important new workforce development bill. The Community Connectors Workforce Program (HB 98) aims to boost career opportunities for young Ohioans by linking high school students with jobs and internships in the skilled trades. Additionally, the bill assigns high school-based program directors the responsibility of helping students develop the “soft skills” needed when they enter the workforce immediately after high school.
The skilled trades offer young students a clear path to upward mobility—in fact, these jobs are becoming more promising. Demand for tradespeople is increasing as the country strives to bring its manufacturing industry back to the U.S. Research also shows that AI-driven job loss will mostly bypass the skilled trades, even as it displaces many white-collar jobs. And if experience is any guide, America’s recent emphasis on immigration enforcement will likely raise wages for tradespeople in the coming years.
Christopher Schorr, director of the Higher Education Reform Initiative at the America First Policy Institute, writes, “median salaries for electrical linemen and elevator repair technicians are $92,560, and $106,580 respectively. Median salaries approach six figures for some master tradesmen, including plumbers ($95,000+) and electricians ($90,000+). Other trades, including solar installers ($80,000+) and HVAC technicians ($78,000+) are not far behind.”
Indiana’s Elkhart County is leading a movement that is gradually spreading across the state to make apprenticeships a standard part of high school programs. In 2019, as part of a plan to improve the region’s economic outlook, county leaders began an effort to place high school students in apprenticeships that combine hands-on training with classroom learning. About 80 students from the county’s seven school districts participated in fields such as healthcare, law, manufacturing, education, and engineering this school year. In April, as part of a broader effort to overhaul high school education and promote work-based learning, the state set a goal of 50,000 high school apprenticeships by 2034.
This “earn and learn” model is gaining popularity because of growing disillusionment with four-year colleges and the fact that well-paying jobs that don’t require bachelor’s degrees remain unfilled nationwide.
Ultimately, reforming the failing government-run education system and the nation’s colleges will be challenging. Before they damage more young people’s lives, students and their families must take responsibility for their education and avoid college when it isn’t absolutely necessary for their future.
Link: https://www.forkidsandcountry.org/blog/the-sandstorm-gen-vexed/#none
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Larry Sand, a retired 28-year classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida
