>graduating college is not really the same as making all the right choices...
Perhaps, but completing college is generally considered to be a better choice than is dropping out of high school. And it is generally associated with better decision-making and better outcomes.
Whether it should be or whether it's changing may be subject to debate, but we have generally rewarded that choice in the past, all things being equal.
But one of the big ways in which English-speaking countries are dropping the ball on equality is by making everything depend on university degrees.
We lose the opportunity for people to rise by becoming good plumbers (and then becoming owners of growing plumbing related buisinesses). Instead we try to fake equality by getting more and more students into soft degrees where the graduates still end up working at McDonalds.
Perhaps, but completing college is generally considered to be a better choice than is dropping out of high school. And it is generally associated with better decision-making and better outcomes.
Whether it should be or whether it's changing may be subject to debate, but we have generally rewarded that choice in the past, all things being equal.