The state of MN spends around $15,000 per student in some areas of the Twin Cities for K-12 education.  $15,000!  The University of MN costs about $10,000 per year.  A good private K-12 school in the Twin Cites costs around $6,000 to $8,000.  You do the math.  I had an Army stint prior to my college days, but knew from the first day the kind of "scam" these education institutions have going on.  I had a class in Sociology my first year.  I had a class in English that required a ridiculous amount of note card use for "sources."  I had a class in Geography that required a memorization of the globe.  I had a class in Philosophy, etc...  I'm an engineer.  What is wrong with this picture?  I had a class in Women's Studies!  Ugh!  Sure, I had classes in Math, Physics, Chemistry, etc, as well, but what of the other classes?  Useful or just "Well Rounded" education crap?  Full employment departments for those who are incapable of acquiring private sector jobs?  Let me stop here and quick point out this article from UT.  UT is looking to allow for early high school graduation.  I think we already see this with advanced placement courses, etc...  Students end up with light course loads their senior years.  They also end up with some college credit right from day one. I tend to believe that K-12 education should be the norm.  I don't think we should send kids off to college before age 18.  Take all the AP classes you want, just stay in high school to the end, you will enter college with some credits completed.  Yes, I'm entirely against the teacher unions, high property taxes, etc...  K-12 is in need of HUGE reform.  Vouchers, competition, no tenure, etc...  College on the other hand, is in need of some similar and different reform.  To leave high school and then have your freshman year of college be the EXACT same course is a complete scam.  There is just no way it should take four years to get a Bachelor's degree.  The norm should be three years.  Dump the "diversity," "politically correct," and "filler" classes that do more to employ professors than educate.  I literally got an "A" in Women's Studies by speaking out against men.  I even garnered special praise via a term paper margin note when I concluded the best way to get more news stories about women was to employ more women in the news.  Ha!  The two have NOTHING to do with each other.  It is just news programs assigning stories to certain kinds of reporters, etc...  I digress...  I remember vividly spending 20+ hours per week just building my single board computer for my microprocessor class.  I had Geography beforehand and would often have my circuit in tow.  A board full of chips, resistors, and an Italian meals worth of wires all tangled together.  I was literally on the cusp of personally being a UFO sighting in a "stone age" setting.  I would start my day learning that country "A" had river "B" near a lake named "C."  My IQ lowered 50 points, I rushed off to the Microprocessors class to hook my "patient" up to various test equipment to ensure functionality, etc...  Explain this to me...  When you are on a flight home, does it comfort or disturb you that the engineer who designed the airplane's control systems had Geography class before Microprocessors class?  It sure "traumatized" me.  I had HUGE interests in robotics, but was limited in my pursuit due to stupid "General Education Electives."  I seriously believe to this day that the single greatest bang for your college buck in Grad school.  It is just two years of nothing by high tech nerd classes.  Classes purely in your field.  Joy!  I think there are two sets of victims here.  The college "educated" that leave school $20,000+ in debt with one to two years of uselessness mixed in with their "expertise."  Then there are the Trade School graduates who essentially completed the same programs, but in two years instead of four.  How that extra couple years worth of "Well Rounded" education translates into more bucks is beyond me.  These accredited institutions need to retool.  Three year Bachelor's degrees or five year BS/MS combined.  Done!