How many times a week do you stress about your grades? If it were not for college applications, would you still care about those microscopic black letters on crisp white paper given out every nine weeks?

Many high school students are bombarded with college pamphlets and flyers around springtime in their sophomore year, and the constant flow doesn’t let up until senior year. Meanwhile, as if overflowing mailboxes aren’t enough, school counselors push students to think about their future with college visits and one-on-one meetings.

While this is helpful for students who are fully invested in their education and can pay for it, this forces other students into a process that they’re not even sure is for them. Kids who haven’t found their passion in life or who want to take time off from school in order to work are left in the dust. These students develop a reputation for being “slackers” or worse, stupid.

Not enough teachers and counselors encourage and help students to look into other options after graduation, such as working full-time, the military, trade school, or even community college. If more attention were given to these less popular pathways, the dropout rate for college, which is on average forty percent, according to the American Institute for Research, would be significantly lower. Teenagers should be encouraged to choose the path that is right for them, not the path that will make them the most money as college is often considered.