In the latest TIME, John McWhorter makes the case that President Obama has done much to benefit black Americans, even though he hasn?t followed a ?black-specific agenda.?

Whether you endorse or reject McWhorter?s arguments in favor of the president?s accomplishments, you?ll likely find the following observation interesting:

Few black street myths are more disabling than the observation that a man without a college degree used to be able to support a family on a low-skill manufacturing job but that in today’s economy, uneducated black men are unqualified for meaningful employment. This bleak vision of ghetto black men’s prospects requires a certain blindness. It’s vanishingly rare for the typical cable-TV installer, mechanic, sound technician or air-conditioning specialist to be a white guy with a degree from Duke.

Yet the sense persists that to not go to college, in the traditional sense of four years of liberal-arts study, is a glum disability. Many of us assume this because we’ve been taught to think of vocational training as a kind of consolation prize, a lower track. But not so long ago, one did not shudder at the notion of a person choosing a career working with his hands. Today, one pathway to a satisfying and even middle-class career is community college.

Stated another way, college has been oversold.