Steven P. BarrettCOLLEGE EDUCATION: HOW MUCH IS IT WORTH TO YOU?
June 19th 2008 00:00
Link: www.stu.edu
Just how badly do you need a college degree from one of our most prestigious colleges and universities?
Is it worth all the aggravation of studying long hours in the night on top of joining and participating in this or that organization just to fill up your applications? Is it worth losing all that sleep and precious free time necessary to actually THINK about what you really want to do in life, as opposed to joining in with the rest of the lemmings?
Parents: how deeply into debt do you want to delve to make sure your kids get into that special school? Is it worth hocking both your future and your kids' inheritances thanks to all the second mortgages you might be taking out just to make the difference between what the government will allow in financial aid, scholarships earned by the kids and what you can honestly afford to shell out?
"Well, if your kid gets into THE RIGHT SCHOOL, and does well, don't worry about the loans, the debts incurred and all of the rest of the hassles, etc. -- it'll all pay off in the end. I've heard that quite a few times and also met my share of pig farmers with Ivy League diplomas, not to mention a few unemployed but very well-educated people who are well supplied with degrees they've earned from one or more top ranked schools -- who also happen to be working in local retail stores, having to take lower level positions in various local college libraries, or scraping to get by with their BA in art appreciation or American Lit.
They're very well educated, but also saddled with heavy debts and stuck working in very low paying jobs, at least insofar as what they had otherwise expected to find after graduation.
I live in a college-saturated area. It’s very difficult for me to complain about the benefits of being surrounded by the institutions which comprise the Five Colleges, Inc. consortium: UMass/Amherst, Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Smith and Hampshire Colleges. In many respects they help keep our little neck of western Massachusetts "inflation proof." If there's been a rash of foreclosures, they've happened in nearby Springfield, MA, (which also boasts two colleges, but it also has an entirely different social climate.)
On the other hand, I've also witnessed local high schools and prep schools pump up their post-graduation college enrollment figures, and guess what: in my former hometown of Amherst, you'd be led to think every kid was headed off to college. That's nice, except for one thing: So many of those kids are also enrolled in local community colleges, requiring only a checkbook and a live pulse to get in the door!
Here's the kicker and the return laugh at all the parents, guidance counselors, recruiters from so many big name colleges and universities, etc., the kids who attend the old so-called "junior colleges" are the hungriest, most ambitious and most likely to succeed. They're often the most overlooked, too.
You don't have to look far to find them. They're in every corner of every state and nation with a well-designed system of higher education. Moreover, most of them are at least bright enough to realize that an interesting course taken at presitigious course offered by Mount Holyoke College (MHC) where I used to work may also be found, albeit in different format, at Holyoke Community College (HCC) and for a lot less money. Then, with the money saved at HCC, a female applicant is better afford to attend MHC with the help of a Frances Perkins Scholarship for older applicants.
Or, you can follow my route for a while. I gave serious thought to becoming a history teacher, something I wanted to do from my earlier college days when and where I graduated from (then) Biscayne College in Miami, FL. (Nowadays Biscayne is part of St. Thomas University, STU) Because I needed to make up some additional "missing courses" I took advantage of MHC's generous tuition policies. As a result, I'm probably the only STU graduate who earned after-graduation course credits at Mount Holyoke College -- and all for the cost of my books!)
That's the smart way to get into the Ivies. Your collars might be a little bluer upon entrance. But who cares what they look like under your robe two years later when you graduate from a well-known school you were able to afford?
Is it worth all the aggravation of studying long hours in the night on top of joining and participating in this or that organization just to fill up your applications? Is it worth losing all that sleep and precious free time necessary to actually THINK about what you really want to do in life, as opposed to joining in with the rest of the lemmings?
Parents: how deeply into debt do you want to delve to make sure your kids get into that special school? Is it worth hocking both your future and your kids' inheritances thanks to all the second mortgages you might be taking out just to make the difference between what the government will allow in financial aid, scholarships earned by the kids and what you can honestly afford to shell out?
"Well, if your kid gets into THE RIGHT SCHOOL, and does well, don't worry about the loans, the debts incurred and all of the rest of the hassles, etc. -- it'll all pay off in the end. I've heard that quite a few times and also met my share of pig farmers with Ivy League diplomas, not to mention a few unemployed but very well-educated people who are well supplied with degrees they've earned from one or more top ranked schools -- who also happen to be working in local retail stores, having to take lower level positions in various local college libraries, or scraping to get by with their BA in art appreciation or American Lit.
They're very well educated, but also saddled with heavy debts and stuck working in very low paying jobs, at least insofar as what they had otherwise expected to find after graduation.
I live in a college-saturated area. It’s very difficult for me to complain about the benefits of being surrounded by the institutions which comprise the Five Colleges, Inc. consortium: UMass/Amherst, Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Smith and Hampshire Colleges. In many respects they help keep our little neck of western Massachusetts "inflation proof." If there's been a rash of foreclosures, they've happened in nearby Springfield, MA, (which also boasts two colleges, but it also has an entirely different social climate.)
On the other hand, I've also witnessed local high schools and prep schools pump up their post-graduation college enrollment figures, and guess what: in my former hometown of Amherst, you'd be led to think every kid was headed off to college. That's nice, except for one thing: So many of those kids are also enrolled in local community colleges, requiring only a checkbook and a live pulse to get in the door!
Here's the kicker and the return laugh at all the parents, guidance counselors, recruiters from so many big name colleges and universities, etc., the kids who attend the old so-called "junior colleges" are the hungriest, most ambitious and most likely to succeed. They're often the most overlooked, too.
You don't have to look far to find them. They're in every corner of every state and nation with a well-designed system of higher education. Moreover, most of them are at least bright enough to realize that an interesting course taken at presitigious course offered by Mount Holyoke College (MHC) where I used to work may also be found, albeit in different format, at Holyoke Community College (HCC) and for a lot less money. Then, with the money saved at HCC, a female applicant is better afford to attend MHC with the help of a Frances Perkins Scholarship for older applicants.
Or, you can follow my route for a while. I gave serious thought to becoming a history teacher, something I wanted to do from my earlier college days when and where I graduated from (then) Biscayne College in Miami, FL. (Nowadays Biscayne is part of St. Thomas University, STU) Because I needed to make up some additional "missing courses" I took advantage of MHC's generous tuition policies. As a result, I'm probably the only STU graduate who earned after-graduation course credits at Mount Holyoke College -- and all for the cost of my books!)
That's the smart way to get into the Ivies. Your collars might be a little bluer upon entrance. But who cares what they look like under your robe two years later when you graduate from a well-known school you were able to afford?
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Comment by Jen
Money Baffle
Comment by Steven Barrett's OpEd/blog
Thanks for your comments. Interestingly enough, I saw a column by Thomas Sowell today and he said one of the things he's noticed is the number of people from the small colleges who later go on to get their doctorates. They outnumber the number of grads from the larger schools.
What I also think a lot of parents and kids overlook is the large numbers of relatively low or mid-priced smaller colleges and universities that are wonderful for giving young people that chance they need.
It's also heartbreaking to see wealthy parents misuse SPED programs just to get special tutoring for their kids who actually don't need them. The papers get wind of them and all hell breaks loose, bringing down the pols and the SPED kids who need these programs get hurt the first and most.