What happens to the rest of us?

According to the Princeton Review a SAT score of the mid to high 500 seems to be the lower range most colleges expect. While the article takes pains to point out that the scores listed in the chart are not “cut off” scores, students with those scores are most likely to be considered.

All tests tend to have three major groupings, a small group with high scores, a large group clumped around the mean, and a group below average.

If the reports are true and education is the key to jobs and financial success in the future, what happens to the large number of people who score below the “minimums” for college admission? If the tests are to be believed at all, those with too low a score will not be able to either get into college or learn the material without which they will not even get interviewed much less hired.

Americans came to expect that most of us could find jobs that paid well enough for us to own our homes, have cars, TV and the rest of the possessions of modern life. Many jobs at the low end to the middle of the pay scale are disappearing as manufacturing and the associated support functions move to lower cost locations outside the US. Where do those displaced workers, and the new workers going into the job market for the first time, at the same level, find new jobs that pay enough to live as we expect them to be able to live?

This matters to you as a business because those are your customers. No job and they don’t buy and it doesn’t matter how inexpensive your product is.