It would help more if students got real degrees or certificates.
Too many kids go to college in this country, and many go just to go, or for all the wrong reasons.
CDawg has said 65% of US kid go to college, while that number is 35% in Utopia (Europe).
Yes in Europe they decide around 8th grade or so, whether you're likely to end up on a university track, or go into trades. Then they start tailoring the secondary education toward those objectives, and feed students into the appropriate post-high-school educational facilities. For 35%, that's university. Everyone else is steered toward a trade that is better suited to their talents/desires/capabilities.
But unlike, here, the "trades" don't have so much of a negative connotation. They're much more respected than here. And the "trades" are better but also more widely defined.
For example, "Hopsitality/Service" is a well-respected trade. Restaurant workers, hotel workers, bartenders-- they start out on this track in late high school and then have specific vocational training over the course of a year or two or three, underpinned by a strong job placement staff at most of the trade schools. My friend and bartender at my hotel where I lived in France, had gone through secondary school targeted at hospitality, then a 2-year post-high-school program, and then basically served an apprenticeship of a couple of years, on cruise ships out of Port Canaveral, FL. He was a bad-ass bartender who spoke multiple languages fluently, and could cook just a about anything. Some of my favorite meals in France, were when he'd invite mt to his home and cook all sorts of French specialties.
Anyway, TL; DR -- universities were never meant to be used as vocational schools and they do a poor job of it.
