High school students are facing the whole new world of education. Is it worth getting?

When you’re in high school, it’s challenging enough to plan for the next week, let alone the next 10, 15, 25 years. But if a high school student had the foresight to look ahead that far in the future, and even further down the road, they would undoubtedly see the importance of having a high school education. Rather than leaving it up to the near-sighted adolescent to decide, a law should be enacted mandating that all American residents and citizens complete a high school education. After all, it’s free to the public (or paid for with taxes) kindergarten to the 12th grade. And it’s probable that most people who drop out before graduating from high school tend to lead lives of struggle, financial hardship, and criminal troubles, too. 


To begin with, a high school diploma should be the standard in America, because a solid high school education lays a solid foundation for the rest of a person’s life. In high school, as well as the years leading up to high school, a student learns the basics, of course – reading, writing, and arithmetic – but also how to do many other skills that will serve them well as working adults. The school prepares a person to be a responsible, resourceful adult. In school, whether a student realizes it at the time, they are developing quite valuable skills and learning important information. When a person finishes high school, they can do just about anything an adult person needs to do to survive and live a good life – read road maps and plan a trip; understand contracts and agreements, as well as read directions on how to assemble something; balance a checkbook, research how to solve a problem. A high school education is imperative for everyone looking to survive adulthood.

Ultimately life is disease, death and oblivion. It's still better than high school. - Dan Savage

Secondly, a high school education provides a person with the knowledge and fundamental skills needed to get a job as an adult; therefore, it should be made mandatory. To survive in America as an adult, one needs a decent-paying job – and to get a job that pays even the minimum wage, a person generally needs a high school diploma. Take, for example, a gas-station attendant. They work with money most of the day, so they must have a strong foundation in math – a skill taught in school from the very beginning, up until the more-advanced math courses in high school, such as algebra and statistics. Even gas-station attendants are generally required to have some basic knowledge of technology to work the money machines. Nowadays, students begin working on computers from a very early age, in elementary school, and they’re taught more advanced computing skills in high school. Also, attendants each day must communicate information to customers and supervisors alike. Communication skills are created and developed through one’s schooling, through writing papers, engaging in discussions, reading, researching and conversing. Without a high school education, a person lacks the necessary skills to be successful as an adult. 

Thirdly, a high school education should be mandatory for all Americans for another important reason: the entire point of education is to establish the intellectual foundations needed to be self-educated. In other words, when a person graduates from high school, they possess the intellectual and informational resourcefulness one needs to teach him or herself just about anything. Naturally, there are tons of people with just a high school education who have gone on to become very successful individuals in just about various fields and industries. Due to their educational foundation, however, they are self-learners capable of mastering any task and challenge they face as adults.


To conclude, there should be a law that makes a high school education mandatory for all Americans; that is, a person should be penalized for not finishing high school and getting their diploma. A lack of education hinders an individual, which hurts the economy in the long run – which in turn hinders a country from moving forward and flourishing. It gets left behind. One may go as far to argue how Americans should be legally required to have some sort of post-high school education – whether a college degree or at the very least some sort of specialty education, an apprenticeship, if one prefers the less-academic route. Either way, a high school education is necessary for anyone required to work for a living. It’s imperative for success.