When I went to "high school" in Sweden in the 90's, you could choose between a few theoretical, three-year, "college-prep" programmes, or a multitude of vocatio

When I went to "high school" in Sweden in the 90's, you could choose between a few theoretical, three-year, "college-prep" programmes, or a multitude of vocational programmes that would pretty much land you a job straight out. But in the 2000's sometime, our glorious politicians decided that it was "unfair" that students who chose the vocational programmes couldn't go straight to university, so they were all changed, a lot more theoretical subjects were added, such that everyone would be eligible for college. Naturally, a complete disaster, because the kids who previously chose vocational programmes because they were really tired of school and wanted to do something else, didn't do well in the new programmes and started flunking out en-masse instead. I hear there's talk of going back to the old model again, but that's a decade or two "lost", because of political short-sightedness. Yes, it's better to get your population college-educated than not, but you can't force people to do it. If people want to quit studying after elementary or high-school, let them! And if they want to go back to school after a few years, take them in again!