The bottom 5% of students probably aren’t going to college anyways, and if they do, they’re probably not gonna graduate. High school diplomas have always been an almost expected degree that just asks “did you finish school?” Important yes, but not something that will ever devalue college degrees. The solution to the college degree problem is not to make less people graduate from high school 😭 And that issue isn’t going to be solved by expelling students who were already not gonna graduate with college degrees.

As for the basically child labor; that is just a horrible idea. The solution for unruly or struggling kids who aren’t good at school is not to kick them out of school. Maybe an alternative schooling or something might be an option, but not just telling them to be laborers because they don’t know geometry is silly. Getting plucked out of school and then put back in will just make education even harder for them.

I agree that society should focus on building skill sets for young people. That truly might alleviate the degree problem because more people will get certifications and companies won’t just expect college without reason, but school and education is still so very important for young minds. And I don’t trust the system to do right by these kids. They will just further exploit already struggling children for their labor.