Today’s episode of CNN Student News has an interesting story about a community college in Michigan that is offering students a money-back guarantee. The college, Lansing Community College, promises students in some programs that they will find a job in their field. The story appears at the end of the video embedded below.

I saw this story and wondered what kind of message are we sending to students if we start guaranteeing that they will get jobs because of their education. While we (teachers, administrators, and other stake-holders) often promote higher education as a means to better job opportunities should we go so far as to guarantee better job opportunities? It seems that when we take the step of guaranteeing better job opportunities we’re sending the message, to students and those outside of education, that education is only about training a workforce and not about promoting inquiry, exploration, and learning for personal growth.