How to Build Beneficial Detours to Smooth the Road to College
Last month, as part of The Chronicle’s series on reinventing
college, I suggested that the United States needs more
structured, maturing experiences for high-school graduates to
ease their path to college. The column generated dozens of
comments, mostly in support of the idea.  Now it’s time for the
hard part: How would we build such detours on the way to
college? Which entities would take the lead in building them?
And what are the hurdles to making the concept viable?  Plenty
of models for alternative pathways already exist, except nearly
all of them are geared exclusively toward easing the transition
from college to the work world. The one with perhaps the highest
profile is Teach For America, which places recent college
graduates as teachers in struggling schools. Last year nearly
48,000 graduates applied for just 5,200 slots in the program.
Taking a page from the success of Teach for America is another
new endeavor for the post-college crowd