It is universally acknowledged that the education means a series of activities which offer people the access to knowledge and ensure their ability of serve the society. However, when the specific topic is mentioned, arguments appear everywhere. One of these argument is whether the educational institutions have a responsibility to dissuade students from pursing fields of study in which they are unlikely to succeed. My answer toward this question is negative. As far an I am concerned, the institutions should ensure the students with freedom to choose their field, no matter how unlikely they are to be successful.
The question whether one can be success in a specific field is complex, and is relative to many factors. First of all, one need to have a supreme passion to what he/she will choose. Only having the motivation, which comes from their passion, can they survive the boring and even hard period in their later work-life. Secondly, one need to be professional on his/her field. Newton described himself as the one stand on the shoulders of a giant. The word "giant" here means the result or accomplishment of the former scientist, which is now become the basics of one field. One can only stand higher and thus see further when he/she stand on the giant's ground shoulder. Last but not the least, creativity is needed. The accomplishments of the former do not belongs to us, what we need to do is to create something original, something that is appreciable from the public.
It is unwise to evaluate how difficult it is for everyone to be successful in a given field. When the amount of all student is large enough, statistically, we are able to say that a student's abilities over the factors to success are random. According to the former analysis, the difficulty has lots of factors relative. So there is little possibility that a group of people have the same level towards the difficulty on success. And thus there are no field which is difficult or easy for everyone.
Even if the evaluation is possible, the option to dissuade the student from choosing such fields is unwise. When the institutions explain the condition of every field objectively, almost everyone would choose the easier-successful field and thus there are no need to dissuade them. Even if there are still some students choose the opposite, their options couldn't come out of no reason. They may have more supreme passion over the field they choose or they and thus there is nothing to worry about.
Also, although there are some fields difficult for most of students to success, one should know that every effort works. Once they become successful, the benefit they gain is much more than others. Investment Bank in China, for example, only take about 500 new employees per year, regardless of hundreds of graduates graduating from school. Their income, however, can be up to ten times the salary of an ordinary worker.
All in all, set student free from choosing any field is obviously a better idea, no matter how difficult it is to success.