Colleges Are Failing in Graduation Rates

More proof of a crumbling society:

"If you were going to come up with a list of organizations whose failures had done the most damage to the American economy in recent years, you’d probably have to start with the Wall Street firms and regulatory agencies that brought us the financial crisis. From there, you might move on to Wall Street’s fellow bailout recipients in Detroit, the once-Big Three.

But I would suggest that the list should also include a less obvious nominee: public universities.

At its top levels, the American system of higher education may be the best in the world. Yet in terms of its core mission — turning teenagers into educated college graduates — much of the system is simply failing."

It should be no surprise that if our schools are crumbling then so is our infrastructure:

Failing infrastructure is not just an L.A. problem. Further north, workers scrambled to reopen the 73-year old Bay Bridge between San Francisco and Oakland after finding a crack in a steel beam. The bridge was severely damaged and refurbished after the 1989 earthquake.

But it's not just earthquake-prone California that's falling apart. And it's not just bridges and water mains, but also airports, dams, roadways, sewers and more.

In their annual report card, the nation's civil engineers give the whole country poor grades for infrastructure.