The preparation for college and a career afterwards has gotten ridiculous. People are just trying to get an education and follow their own muse. Yet students in high school are under pressure to perform before they can even critically think for themselves. It's insane in my opinion.

Efforts are now being made to streamline the process of transferring from a community college into a major university in the state of Texas. And the credit for this initiative belongs to our Aggie friends in College Station at Texas A&M University, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

When I was a high school student, I knew what my future was going to be.  Quite simply, I was told I could go to any school I wanted to as long as it was LSU,  which was conveniently located and still is in my hometown. If my family was going to foot the bill, that was what was available to me; if I wanted to go to some school out-of-state or some private school, I had to get a scholarship.  There were no community colleges, there were no pre-college courses at my high school, the options were minimal.

Nowadays, there are options for the young student. Online learning, community colleges are all over the place. Unfortunately one of the lingering problems of higher education is still around. Transferring from one institution to another sometimes causes students to lose credits for classes they have taken and passed.  I never really had that problem, but I've met several people who have and I always felt it was a horrible injustice to have paid for a college course, taken and made the marks only to have that effort tossed aside. Doesn't seem fair, does it?

TAMU sign | Education Images/UIG, Getty Images
Education Images/UIG, Getty Images
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It seems there are great many students who starred community college and do not end up transferring and getting a bachelors degree or higher. Texas A&M thinks that's not acceptable, that more students should be encouraged to pursue greater educational goals.  A&M has even set specific goals to address the workforce needs of the state of Texas. They're using hard data in the best way.  It's very systematic and very forward-thinking.

Bravo to someone making sense of higher ed.  You don't see this kind of thing between ISD's in elementary and secondary education. And that's as it should be.

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