Why One Education Reformer Says the College-for-All Movement ‘Overshot the Target’
The 1990s education reform movement succeeded in raising expectations. Students in underserved communities gained access to rigorous curriculum, extended learning time, and college-preparatory programming that previously didn’t exist. Graduation rates improved. College enrollment climbed.
Yet according to Mike Feinberg, one of that movement’s prominent architects, those gains came with unintended consequences that education systems still struggle to address.
“We overshot the target,” Feinberg argues, reflecting on decades of work promoting college preparation as the primary pathway to success. “We basically shamed vo-tech out of the high schools, which was a terrible mistake. And we told kids and parents that if you want to be successful in this world, you have to go to college.”
The Cost of Universal College Messaging
The critique isn’t that college lacks value. Feinberg’s career, including co-founding the KIPP charter network, demonstrated that students from low-income communities could succeed in higher education when provided appropriate preparation and support.
The problem, he now contends, was treating college as the only legitimate post-secondary pathway. In pursuing that goal, education reformers contributed to eliminating vocational programs, devaluing trade careers, and creating financial pressures that ultimately harmed many students they intended to help.
“In the ’90s, it was like, ‘Yeah, go to college. Figure out what you want to do. If you got to take out a loan, it’s a car loan,'” Feinberg explains. “Now it’s a home mortgage.”
When tuition costs relatively modest amounts, encouraging students to explore majors and discover interests on campus made financial sense. As costs ballooned—rising 169% between 1980 and 2020 according to Georgetown University research—that same advice became economically perilous, particularly for first-generation college students without family safety nets.
The Hidden Costs
The impact extends beyond those who completed degrees with substantial debt. Feinberg identifies three distinct groups among students served by college-prep focused charter schools:
Roughly one-third graduated from college and generally achieved stable careers—though even within this group, some accumulated debt disproportionate to their earning potential.
Another third never attended college despite years of college-preparatory curriculum. For them, high school represented a missed opportunity to explore vocational interests, develop marketable skills, or identify strengths that didn’t align with academic pathways.
The final third—the group Feinberg says keeps him up at night—enrolled in college but didn’t complete degrees. They accumulated debt without earning credentials, leaving them worse off than peers who never attended.
“We didn’t just miss an opportunity with them,” Feinberg acknowledges. “We hurt children.”
Mike Feinberg’s Revised Approach
The recognition prompted fundamental changes in Feinberg’s work. After leaving KIPP leadership, he established the Texas School Venture Fund to support educational models beyond traditional college preparation. Projects include WorkTexas trade training, neighborhood schools serving pre-K through eighth grade, and programs for justice-involved youth.
These initiatives maintain high expectations and rigorous instruction—core principles from earlier reform work—while expanding definitions of success. College preparation remains important, but not synonymous with college requirement.
“College prep should be in all the schools,” Feinberg maintains. “But college prep does not need to mean college for all.”
Industry Response
The revised approach aligns with shifting employer priorities. Research from American Student Assistance indicates that 81% of employers believe hiring decisions should emphasize skills rather than degrees. More than two-thirds report actively hiring candidates without degrees, and 72% say degrees don’t reliably indicate candidate capabilities.
The data suggests Feinberg’s critique addresses broader economic changes. As college costs rose and student debt reached crisis levels, the calculus that made universal college encouragement sensible in the 1990s broke down.
The question facing education systems now isn’t whether the college-for-all movement achieved important gains—it did. The question is whether schools can course-correct without abandoning high expectations, providing genuine pathways for diverse talents rather than funneling everyone through identical gates.