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Short of becoming a r eality TV st ar, the answ er is rote and, some w ould argue, rather knee- jerk: Earn a col lege degree.

The idea that four y ears of higher educ ation will translate into a bet ter job, higher earnings and a happier life — a r efrain sur e to be r epeated this month at gr aduation ceremonies across the country — has been pounded into the heads of schoolchildr en, parents and educators. But ther e’s an under side to that con ventional wisdom. P erhaps no more than half of those who beg an a four-year bachelor’ s degree program in the fal l of 2006 will get that degree within six y ears, ac cording to the latest pr ojections from the Department of Education. ( The figur es don’t include tr ansfer students, who ar en’t tr ack ed.) For col lege students who r anked among the bot tom quarter of their high school clas ses, the numbers are ev en mor e stark: 80 per cent will probably nev er get a bachelor’ s degree or even a t wo-y ear as sociate ’s degr ee.

That c an be a lot of tuition to pa y, without a degr ee to show for it.

A small but influential gr oup of economists and educ ators is pushing another path way: for some students, no col lege at all. It’s time, they sa y, to dev elop credible alternati ves for students unlik ely to be successful pur suing a higher degr ee, or who may not be ready to do so.

Plan B: Skip C ollege GRAD UAT ING N ot ev eryone does. Whether everyone in col lege needs to be ther e is not a new question; the subject has been hashed out in books and dissertations for y ears. But the economic crisis has sharpened that focus, as financial ly struggling states cut aid to higher educ ation.

Among those calling for such alternati ves ar e the economists Richar d K. Vedder of Ohio Uni ver sit y and R obert I. L erman of Americ an Univer sit y, the politic al scientist C harles Murr ay, and J ames E. R osenbaum, an educ ation professor at N orthwestern. T hey would steer some students to war d intensi ve, short-term v ocational and c areer tr aining , through expanded high school pr ograms and corpor ate apprenticeships.

“It is true that w e need more nanosurgeons than w e did 10 to 15 y ears ago, ” said Pr ofessor Vedder , founder of the Center for Col lege Affordabilit y and Pr oductivity , a r esear ch nonpr ofit in W ashington. “But the number s are stil l relati vely smal l compar ed to the numbers of nurses’ aides w e’r e going to need. W e will need hundr eds of thousands of them ov er the next dec ade.” And much of their tr aining, he added, might be feasible outside the col lege setting.

College degr ees are simply not neces sary for many jobs. Of the 30 jobs pr ojected to grow at the fastest r ate over the next dec ade in the United States, only sev en typic ally r equir e a bachelor’ s degree, according to the Bur eau of Labor Statistics.

Among the top 10 gr owing job c ategories, t wo r equir e college degr ees: accounting (a bachelor’ s) and postsecondary teacher s (a doctorate). But this gr owth is expected to be dw arfed b y the need for r egistered nurses, home health aides, customer service repr esent atives and stor e clerks. None of those jobs r equire a bachelor’ s degree.

Profes sor V edder lik es to ask wh y 15 percent of mail c arriers have bachelor’ s degrees, accor ding to a 1999 feder al study.

“Some of them could ha ve bought a house for what they spent on their educ ation,” he said.

Profes sor L erman, the Americ an Univer sit y economist, said some high school gr aduates would be bet ter served by being t aught ho w to beha ve and communic ate in the workplace.

Such skills are rank ed among the most desir ed — even ahead of educ ational attainment — in man y surveys of emplo yer s. I n one 2008 surv ey of more than 2,000 busines ses in Washington St ate, employer s said entry-lev el workers appear ed to be most deficient in being able to “ solve problems and mak e decisions,” “resolv e conflict and negotiate, ” “cooper ate with other s” and “listen acti vely .” Yet despite the need, v ocational pr ograms, which might teach such skil ls, have been one casualt y in the push for national educ ation standards, which has been focused on pr eparing students for college.

While some educ ators propose a r adical reno vation of the communit y college system to teach w ork readines s, Professor L erman adv ocates a signific ant national in vestment b y government and emplo yer s in on-the-job appr enticeship training. He spok e with admir ation, for example, about a pr ogram in the C VS pharmac y chain in which aspiring pharmacists ’ assist ants w ork as appr entices in hundr eds of stores, with man y going on to study to become full-fledged pharmacists themselv es.

“T he health field is an ob vious case wher e the manpo wer situation is les s than ideal,” he said. “I would try to w ork with some of the major emplo yer s to dev elop these kinds of progr ams to yield mastery in jobs that do demand high expertise. ” While no country has a perfect model for such programs, Pr ofessor L erman pointed to a modest study of a G erman effort done last summer b y an intern from that country . She found that of those who pas sed the Abitur, the exam that al lows some G ermans to at tend college for almost no tuition, 40 per cent chose to go into apprenticeships in trades, accounting , sales management, and computer s.

“Some of the people coming out of those appr enticeships are in more demand than col lege graduates, ” he said, “ because they’ ve actual ly managed things in the w orkplace.” Still, by ur ging that some students be dir ected away fr om four-y ear colleges, ac ademics like Profes sor L erman ar e touching a thir d rail of the educ ation system. A t the very least, they could be ac cused of lowering expect ations for some students. Some critic s go further, suggesting that the appr oach amounts to educational redlining, since man y of the students who drop out of col lege are black or non-white Hispanic s.

Pegg y W illiams, a counselor at a high school in suburban N ew York Cit y with a student body that is mostly black or Hispanic, under stands the ar gument for erring on the side of pushing more students to war d col lege.

“If w e’r e tel ling kids, ʻ You c an’t cut the must ard, y ou shouldn ’t go to col lege or uni ver sit y,’ then w e’r e shortchanging them fr om experiencing an environment in which they might grow ,” she said.

But M s. Williams said she w ould be more willing to counsel some students a way fr om the precol lege tr ack if her school, M ount Vernon High School, had a bet ter vocational educ ation alternative. Ov er the last dec ade, she said, cour ses in culinary arts, nur sing, dentistry and heating and ventilation system r epair were eliminated. P erhaps 1 percent of this y ear’s graduates wil l complete a concentr ation in vocational cour ses, she said, compar ed with 40 percent a dec ade ago.

Ther e is another r ejoinder to the c ase against col lege: People with col lege and graduate degrees gener ally earn mor e than those without them, and face lo wer risk s of unemplo yment, ac cording to figur es from the Bur eau of Labor Statistics.

Even those who experience a few y ears of col lege earn mor e money, on aver age, with les s risk of unemplo yment, than those who mer ely graduate fr om high school, said M orton Schapiro, an economist who is the pr esident of Northwestern U niver sit y.

“ Y ou get some r eturn even if you don ’t get the sheepskin, ” Mr. Schapir o said.

He w arned ag ainst overlooking the int angible benefits of a col lege experience — even an incomplete experience — for those who might not apply what they learned dir ectly to their chosen work.

“It’s not just about the economic r eturn,” he said. “ Some college, whether y ou complete it or not, contributes to aesthetic appr eciation, better health and bet ter voting beha vior.” N onetheles s, Professor R osenbaum said, high school counselor s and teachers are not doing enough to alert students unlik ely to earn a college degree to the perilous r oad ahead.

“I’m not sa ying don ’t get the B.A ,” he said. “I’ m saying, let’s get them some interv ening credentials, some interv ening milestones. Then, if they want to go further in their educ ation, they can.”