In a recent report released on the higher education of every state, California earned an A for affordability, but a C- for preparation.

That’s wonderful.

We can all pay for college, but nobody is ready to go.

Currently, the solution is to flood the community college with students who are not performing at college level and provide them with pre-freshman level courses until they can gain the skills needed to pass those entry level courses.

Given the fact that everyone should at least be allowed the opportunity to go to college and not everyone enters freshman year on the same academic level, I will agree that this is an appropriate response.

However, my question is, how did these students get here this way? I’m aware that one can enter community college without ever have graduating high school, but that is not what I am talking about. I’m talking about the students that graduated high school.

I’m talking about the students who sat through four years of English and still have no concept of what an independent clause is. (I dare not ask for a definition of the term; the ability to write a complete sentence would be adequate.)

For this I blame both the student and the school.

I cannot begin to explain the amount of free time I watched my peers idle away in high school. I would stay up late revising the third draft of some AP Government paper, while my friends would be in bed by ten after a long day of chat rooms and Ricky Lake reruns.

I make no effort to appear unbiased in reference to the AP system. I took those classes because I wanted to be challenged. Sadly, this is a concept lost on many of my generation.

The classes were available, and my high school would have gladly provided more had the student body asked. But no one asked.

It was as though the entire student body had banned together and said, “We should do poorly. They can’t flunk everyone.”

And they were right.

Every time an entire class forgot its homework, there was an extension. Every time no one passed the test, the teachers assumed the work was too hard. Every time the students couldn’t measure up, the standards were lowered.

I believe that although there are those who long to be challenged, many do only what is asked of them and absolutely nothing more.

I once had one of my more intelligent friends explain to me how he only did enough to get by. Whether the class was regular history or AP Calculus, it was his practice to meet only the minimum requirements.

This mentality carries over into student’s performance in college.

I would love to dismiss it as being none of my business. But, when I have to rearrange my schedule to accommodate the sophomore level classes I need to transfer, while there is nearly half a page of listings for English 50, I become slightly annoyed.

I do not blame the college and I do not blame the college student for trying to become something better through means of education, even if she has to start from square one.

I just think it would be advantageous for us all if people would start thinking about their future in education during those first 12 years they’re forced to sit in class anyway.