Nowadays in school, kids in high school are receiving much more help and support, which is not as good as it sounds. Studies show that the public high school graduation rate has increased to the highest it has been since 1970. This is great; this is what we wanted, right?

Wrong. The reason for the increased graduation rate is because we, as a country, noticed that the high school dropout rate was too high. Too many kids were not getting their diplomas, and struggled to find work. In order to fix that, many plans took effect. Students can visit their teachers often before, during, and after school for extra help. This is fantastic. The problems arise when teachers are finding any small way to give students credit just so they can pass and move on to get their diploma. Now you’ve got a group of students graduating high school, but not learning much of anything.

And it is not the teachers’ fault. They are receiving intense amounts of pressure from their administrators, who are receiving intense amounts of pressure from their local and state governments to ensure that students get through high school. But that exactly is the problem. Too many students are just “getting through” high school without taking anything away from it except for how to just “get by.” An employer is not going to want someone with this attitude. They want someone who can work hard and provide value for their company.

Students are also not learning how to think, how to learn. They just know that they need to learn the material that will be on their next calculus test, even if they are not going to have a career in calculus. In order to learn it, they repeat problems or vocabulary or concepts over and over until they are temporarily etched into the student’s brain.

While the graduation rates may have increased for high school, they are still very low for college. Studies show that only 42.1 % of students complete college at the school they began at, and only 55.03% finished after they went to a second or third school. These numbers are very low, and they show that while kids are moving on from high school, they are struggling when they get to college. Why? There is no handholding in college. There are very rarely “re-assessments” or extra credit opportunities. Your lowest test score won’t be dropped at the end of the semester. To some, this is the difference between passing and failing, and large amounts of students are failing.

We can help to solve this problem by making high schools more like college. Let kids know that the real world is not as forgiving as their high school teachers. I am not suggesting making the work more difficult. After all, high school kids are between the ages of 14 and 18. They are still kids. However, some of the extra support or very easy extra credit chances should not be so easily available to these kids. They have to learn what college and the working world will be like for them.