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I've met graduating college kids facing loan payments and a bad economy, and they are worried that they won't be able to get a job. This is not the way America needs to be.

Americans should understand that 50%, or something like, of the kids in inner-city schools, often poor and often minority, don't graduate. And the ones that do don't necessarily have the skills to get a job. That is the biggest disgrace in this country.

The problem is that we are trying to prepare people for the new economy using a higher education system built for the old economy. As a result, many high-skilled, high-paying industries suffer from a shortage of labor, while too many low-paying industries suffer from a surplus.

It is U.S. workers who lose out when employers cannot get the high-tech graduates they need to compete with foreign companies in the 21st century economy.

I came across this circumstance of undocumented students. These are kids who were brought to this country as youngsters, who are raised as Americans and go to American schools, and then when they graduate high school, they have no prospects in front of them because they are undocumented and illegally in the United States.

By 2018, an estimated 63 percent of all new U.S. jobs will require workers with an education beyond high school. For our young people to get those jobs, they first need to graduate from high school ready to start a postsecondary education.

Some go on to trade schools or get further training for jobs they are interested in. Some go into the arts, some are craftsmen, some take a little time out to travel, and some start their own businesses. But our graduates find and work at what they want to do.

Not everybody needs to go to university; they can get out and start working straight away.

Not graduating high school on time leads to fewer chances of attending college and obtaining good paying jobs, and creates instead higher chances of incarceration and unemployment.