Journalism schools should have washout classes — not be the major that people wash out into, the gut course that anyone can pass.  That doesn’t serve the students, and it doesn’t serve society.  

Medical schools in the US have a washout rate of around 40% — and that is caused by courses that are hard enough that students fail them. 

These courses should not be advanced courses, but introductory courses a student must pass in order to get into the major.  The washout courses should focus not just on writing but on the skills that we know our society needs reporters to have, including math and data literacy.  

Too many journalism schools are producing thousands of graduates for jobs that everyone knows don’t exist, and those that do graduate don’t have the skills that are needed at the few jobs that do exist.  

Extracting tens of thousands of dollars from students and their parents for a curriculum that does not serve students and society is a form of fraud that none of us should accept or participate in.  It’s better to fail a student early and wash them out, than to saddle them with a lifetime of student debt for jobs that don’t exist and skills that won’t serve them.