The great majority of high school seniors expect to go to college, though far fewer enroll in four-year schools, and still fewer graduate. These and other findings reported here by Mr. Boesel have important implications for prospective and current students. IT IS NO secret that average educational level of Americans has changed drastically over last century. At end of 19th century, there were far fewer high school graduates, relative to population, than there are graduates today. Indeed, high school graduates were viewed in much same light then as graduates are now. In 1893, an influential committee on secondary schooling headed by Harvard president Charles Eliot wrote that main function of secondary school was to prepare for duties of life that small proportion of children in country - a proportion small in number but very important to welfare of nation - who show themselves able to profit by an education prolonged to eighteenth year, and whose parents are able to support them while they remain so long at school.1 At turn of century, median educational level of white males was eighth grade, and high school graduation was rare. It wasn't till midcentury that a majority of young people completed high school. In 1950, for example, 53% of 25- to 29-year-olds were high school graduates, and 8% were graduates. At time, a high school diploma was generally regarded as achievable standard required to get a good job and support a family. Today, in either a two- or four-year school has become norm. In 1997, 57% of young people aged 25 to 29 had at least some college. Many consider a bachelor's degree essential to economic success, and some foresee a day when four years of will be accepted standard for educational attainment, much as a high school diploma was in 1950. Yet some observers believe that there is much emphasis today on getting a For example, William Goodling (R-Pa.), who chaired education committee in U.S. House of Representatives, has remarked: We're overselling college: four-year traditional conception of a education. Similarly, Robert Reich, former secretary of labor, has argued that too many families cling to mythology that their child can be a success only if he or she has a degree. Others expressing such reservations include Washington policy experts Samuel Halperin, Jack Jennings, and Diane Stark Rentner; professors Kenneth Gray and Edwin Herr of Pennsylvania State University; and journalists Richard Harwood of Washington Post and Rochelle Stanfield of National Journal. James Rosenbaum, a sociologist at Northwestern University, argues that college for all has become norm in high schools, though many students are not prepared even for two-year colleges. We call widespread expectation that almost everyone will attend the movement. The critics of movement make a number of key points: * Within last several decades, people have come to expect that most or high school graduates should go to college. * Many young people who do not have ability or educational preparation to perform well in four-year colleges are being encouraged to enroll anyway, and colleges have increasingly admitted students whose chances of doing well are slim. * Because many students are not well prepared, graduation rates have become unacceptably low. * Many four-year noncompleters do poorly in labor market and might have been better off enrolling in two-year colleges or in occupational programs. * Many students are burdened with accumulated debt from loans that could have been avoided or minimized by a choice of other educational and training options. This debt is especially burdensome for noncompleters. …