NWR: Searching for a College
- Thread starter Bill Lundstrom
- Start date
Yeah, it was not particularly insightful (typical NY Times vapidity), but does show a slice of what is going on in the hinterlands.
To me, the telling thing is that college is a gateway for the lower and lower-middle classes to ascend. Maybe they and their families don't know a lot about college and middling colleges market to them heavily and take advantage of this relative ignorance.
Unfettered markets and all that. Yay.
Christian Miller (CMM)
Christian Miller
Layers upon layers of complexity, it's nearly as bad as health care. I'm not totally convinced that ranked schools are necessarily better than community colleges when it comes to shovel-ready, income-producing work skills; particularly if "superior" school pupil spent most of their time parsing novels for deconstructionist themes or floating hypotheses about popular culture untethered to any hard evidence. And our business culture is skilled at giving people a poor return on their money whenever the product is complex and the returns well in the future. On the other hand, there is the likelihood that the combination of the high grade sheepskin, and the connections one makes there, provide a higher probability of future earnings or success than otherwise.
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
Jay Miller
Jay Miller
The second article in that link was even more interesting.
Cole Kendall
Cole Kendall
scottreiner
scott reiner
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ian Fitzsimmons
Howard Cooper
Howard Cooper
My only recent expertise on colleges is through my kids (now 26 and 24) and their friends. For point of reference, my daughter went to Washington University in SL and, after working a few years, is now in graduate school at the Woodrow Wilson school at Princeton. My son has a BS and MS in engineering from Northwestern.
By far the most important thing I have found in a college is to find a place where the kid will fit in. One of my daughter's friends got into a school that probably was too tough for her and she was anxious all through college. I know other kids that went to schools for financial or other reasons that were too easy for them and they were bored and often did not fit in socially.
But, fitting in is not just a matter of too hard or too easy. It is also a matter of what interests the kid. You want them to find others like them, but not everyone just like them. It was good that my son did not go to an all engineering school, for example. Northwestern had enough engineering and other kids interested in science so that he fit in, but a lot of kids with diverse interests so that he met people that were not just like him.
So, step back a minute and think beyond US News ratings and bang for the buck. This is somewhere where you child will be living for four years and will be growing and changing perhaps more than any time in their live. Pick a place that works for the child.
By far the most important thing I have found in a college is to find a place where the kid will fit in. One of my daughter's friends got into a school that probably was too tough for her and she was anxious all through college. I know other kids that went to schools for financial or other reasons that were too easy for them and they were bored and often did not fit in socially.
But, fitting in is not just a matter of too hard or too easy. It is also a matter of what interests the kid. You want them to find others like them, but not everyone just like them. It was good that my son did not go to an all engineering school, for example. Northwestern had enough engineering and other kids interested in science so that he fit in, but a lot of kids with diverse interests so that he met people that were not just like him.
So, step back a minute and think beyond US News ratings and bang for the buck. This is somewhere where you child will be living for four years and will be growing and changing perhaps more than any time in their live. Pick a place that works for the child.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
Like Mark, I like the point of the article. But there may be some special pleading since the rate of inflation of private tuition is given to you as offset by financial aid. Most private universities, however, increase financial aid as they increase tuitions in order to make need based aid still meaningful. And, as higher tuition drives more of the middle class into the category of need based, the pressure on that aid gets stronger. The face value rise of tuition, without taking financial aid into account, isn't the full story, but neither is it irrelevant.
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ian Fitzsimmons
Good essay, thanks; useful at the policy scale of resolution rather than the household one, though.
vaughn tan
vaughn tan
UVa is a great place to go to school, not only for the school but for the town as well. It also has an amazing merit scholarship program (the jefferson scholars) which should be investigated, in-state tuition is reasonable, and there is an extensive language program. the undergraduate business college (mcintire) is good for the 4yr undergrad business program. getting a jefferson means no debt post-college at all. and one of the things that has become increasingly clear to me is that student debt is a huge factor in immediate post-college happiness and flexibility. if you have tens of thousands of dollars in debt on graduating, you really don't have many options to take time off or take a low-paying but interesting job or join/start a startup (or name your other non-lucrative but potentially life-enriching diversion). anything you can do to get college paid for without debt should be done.
but, taking a step back, in her position i might interrogate the choice of international business studies. others have made some similar points, but i want to reiterate:
1) if she wants to do business internationally, that's something that happens after college. college could be about learning some set of concrete skills (say, if you want right out of school to be a mechanical engineer at a solar startup) but—as someone who got his phd at a business school—i don't know that business skills are the type that can be learned at college or should be. that's what internships and first jobs are for. finding a first job overseas after college is, in my mind, the way to get into international business.
2) going to college with a fixed idea of the major you're going to go into seems unnecessary and not much fun. changing your mind is part of the fun of college which, imo, should not be thought of as professional skool.
3) business majors sometimes don't get taken seriously during resume review. i used to be on hiring committee at the Massive Evil Corp i worked at and we would routinely filter those from the pile. i think this is because there are some good students who choose to go into business majors for the right reasons but they tend to get drowned out by the others who do it because it is perceived to be easier and/or more lucrative.
4) taking lots of language classes seems unambiguously good. majoring in a language is less clearly useful.
tl;dr recommendation: look for merit-based scholarships and apply aggressively to those then go to a school (state or not) where the final debt burden is low and where it feels right (make sure to visit and talk to people who are about to graduate). consider a business major but look at other things too: do something enjoyable and interesting. take lots of language classes. start looking for an internship (paying, for preference; unpaid internships are almost always lame) right away for the summer between freshman and sophomore years—something in business, something overseas would be ideal.