That we are the only industrialized nation where eligible applicants are denied college because of a lack of funding, or not having a legacy to fall back on, or parents wealthy enough to buy their children's acceptance into higher education should make our citizens outraged. We are no longer a leader in education(if we ever have been)when we continue to fail miserably behind other country's students, In other countries merit gets you into higher education not anything else. Beyond that, in other nations children do not have to worry about being killed when they attend school. Wake up Americans!! Vote to oust those repellent politicians that ignore climate change, drive our debt into the trillions, and ignore calls for sensible gun legislation.
20
It's organized child abuse, and the kicker is that if there's no massive change, fast, it won't make much difference what college any kid goes to.
All part of the Giant Fantasy we all participate in, acting as if there actually is a future, when we know there isn't unless we all engage in a gigantic struggle to end carbon burning, get nuclear arms control back on track and fasttrack to zero nukes, and other things besides. We all know it, including the evangelical Trumpers who pretend they don't. They know. They see. The "fake news" doesn't work.
But what about us, the higher denialists, if that adjective is even accurate? We smart types read Pinker and think, gee, it's all peachy! He does science! I'm not a denialist!
And we go about our lives as if nothing much was amiss outside of tweets and Russia troll farms.
5
High school is no longer preparation for life the way it once was. Neither is college. They do not teach basic life skills, and families have been reticent or unable. How to balance a checkbook, the difference between a debit & credit card, or how to understand auto or home insurance is often not taught and learned “on the job.”
So why don’t our “brand name” or “status” colleges get into “branded community college” business? Status, branding and guaranteed credit transfer to their own four year bulwark school. And in topsy-turvy Washington, Pell grants can buy something meaningful, despite the best efforts of Secretary DeVoss to render college degrees meaningless while preserving “choice”; code for restrictionist. We are smarter than they are!
2
We Americans are a cruel people - bombing, blockading, sanctioning, and invading nations at will, while mowing each other down with firearms. That's who we are. It makes sense to have that cruelty reflected in all of our institutions.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
13
Dick Cheney dropped out of Yale. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard. Perhaps, entry to— and then a quick departure from—a prestigious school is a pathway to success. The truly precocious may consider dropping out of Groton, Exeter, or Andover.
5
Frank,
I will reach for you to share how, when, where.. and why.
Taxes, the 90 to 25 tax role, c. 1950. Harold L. Oppenheimer...
Bear, Stearns... I. W. Burnham... all the partnerships...
As a food man, as a chef... as one that suffered obesity...
You may find this fascinating...
Sandy
Best,
Sandy
2
College is used as an easy credential -- easy for an employer as a sorting mechanism. I'm hoping for assessments and virtual simulations to asses hard skills, which an applicant can get with or without college.
2
I have taught at most grade levels, the most important thing about education is that it has no end. The quality of teaching faculty is of moderate effect on outcomes. Almost all colleges and universities use the same texts and a thorough understanding of the material is possible with no teacher. College is a time of student maturation and self realization. The most beneficial results of the education in college is learning a process of self instruction, a life long commitment to education, and knowing who you are.
7
To everyone who has bought the false notion that you absolutely must get into an "elite" school to have a successful life...Frank Bruni wrote a book about how false this notion is, and he is not the only one to have done so. Sure, if you absolutely must be an investment banker or a Big Law partner, knock yourself out. But, in that case, it is not just your choice of college that is cruel. Rather, it is your whole idea of what a successful life really is.
Even back in the "good old days" when college wasn't so cruel, ordinary middle class kids who managed to get into, say, Princeton couldn't make any headway with snobby classmates who came up through prep schools. It's just that now there are even more students who come from truly disadvantaged backgrounds going to these schools, so the gap between the "have" and "have-not" students is even wider and crueler, because they were sold a bill of goods about all the great connections they would make with classmates who would then help them up the ladder of "success".
Parents would do well to disabuse their children of the idea of going into debt to attend their "dream" school. Heck, they should disabuse them of the whole silly idea of "dream schools."
Yes, work hard. Go to an "elite" school if you can get in and out without going into significant debt to do so, if that is what you really want. Otherwise, go the route that gets your degree with the least amount of debt. You'll be happier and more successful in the long run.
12
I have three daughters in college. All of them would have been thrilled to go to a top-flight school, and one of them did well enough in high school to actually get in. But I'm single and make middle-class wages, so we talked about debt, and we made sacrifices, and they went where the scholarships were best. In my time, I also went to a state school, unable to afford anything high-status. But I did well and went to MIT for graduate school for free, and that degree --and those incredibly rich experiences-- have been an anchor for me all through my career. I bet my kids get great grad-school offers, too. In the meantime, we need to rethink the role of status-envy in our college preferences: state school and real personal drive can be far more impressive than a legacy admission to a great school. I wear my working-class bona fides with pride, and my MIT degree proves that the broke kid on Pell grants was always at least as smart as the kids who had the resources to go straight to the top. And, frankly, everyone knows this. True merit will always outshine privelege.
14
I was Kim. I was valedictorian of my high school class and was automatically admitted to the University of Texas at Austin. But my parents made too little to afford for me to attend, and too much for me to qualify for much financial aid. Fortunately, I was college-age when tuition was $4 a credit hour. I went for one year, dropped out and worked as a roadie for a band, saved every penny I earned, and was able to go back and finish my degree while working only part-time. It's ridiculous that kids today have to ransom their future to afford a good education.
11
An excellent podcast by Malcolm Gladwell this past season put the issue clearly - the US makes college critical, then makes access to it scarce. Canada's top public universities (and almost all of the univeristies there are public), ranking high in many global rankings, provide great, accessible education for many tens of thousands of Canadian kids - 85,000 in University of Toronto, 50,000 at UBC, 35,000 at Queen's - all great schools. Gladwell says, Canada saw that more kids needed good education, so they made the schools big enough to provide it. Not the case here.
12
Pick a school from one of the hundreds in the Midwest. Students will be be happy and at least close to debt-free when they finish.
3
This op-ed strikes me a bit as the hubris of well-educated professional. I can't help but notice that Frank Bruni himself has been educated at UNC Chapel Hill and Columbia. He says we need "more and better graduates". Reminds me of when my dad who served in the Navy thinks everyone needs to do a year of national service. Everyone holds the hubris that everyone should be like them, and well-educated professionals have the hubris that education is the cure to all our ills.
College obviously became so cruel when people like my parents told me to "go to college so that you can get a good job". When we outsourced and automized working class jobs and then Democrats said the solution was "more education and training" which never happened.
I myself have an advanced degree and love the university. But I don't think we need more and better graduates. A person's worth is not whether they went to college and the name of the school they went to. We need to make teens aware of ALL of the opportunities out there. And we need to stop having elites who tell us that we need "more and better graduates". We need to accept that not everyone wants to go to college and build our society accordingly.
FYI college as a student was pretty kind to me. I am lucky to have had several great opportunities and do very well in school. It's the job market that's being cruel to me. But I do see how stressed current students are and it's largely the impending cruelty of the job market.
4
"We need more and better graduates. We sure don’t act that way."
Who is the "We"? Answer that question and there might be a clue why we don't act as if we need more and better graduates. Our increasingly high tech economy does indeed need better graduates, but it only needs more to increase the pool to better sift for the best. As for the rest, they drive up the degree requirements for less critical positions, but their end contribution to the economy hardly requires the fruit of their education. A high tech economy is an enormous profit generator; it is not a job generator, not on a mass scale. Do the businesses that benefit from this sifting and sorting want to pay for the process, directly or indirectly as taxpayers? No, instead "We" saddle the aspirants and their parents with the cost, turning college into more of a lottery than an investment, with a lot of dreamers and relatively few winners. You have to play to win, but playing hardly makes you a winner.
3
I graduated from a top tier state college 25 years ago, where I was paying approximately $400 per quarter in tuition. Since I usually attended 3 of the 4 quarters, I was paying about $1,200 per year in tuition. Today, that same school costs almost $10,000 per year. That's a greater than 800% increase in a 25 year period. I worked my way through school with no debt, no scholarships or grants and no parental assistance. There is no way a student nowadays can do what I did then.
12
College is the new high school indeed, because our public schools are failing at K12 education. American students are not getting adequate math and science education because high schools let them slide and still graduate. If we had rigorous high school education, then we wouldn't waste so much money on remedial college educations.
10
Then fund K-12 and do t force teach to the test. Increase salaries and respect of teachers.
That is how we are failing our students
8
@Grover Let me second Dsmith. I teach college and have family members teaching K-12. K-12 is woefully underfunded. Each state needs to invest far more in both K-12 education and the state universities. We need to increase taxes accordingly, as the current approach of low taxes and squeezing education is just citizens trying to get a service without paying for it. We need to improve the quality of math and science education in school. But we need to be careful. Students don't need to learn more math and science, they actually need to learn less while learning it better. To that end, get rid of the standardized test. Teachers are desperately trying to teach too much information already and students need time to digest what they learn.
9
Maybe college was always cruel. During the 70s I went to an elite art school where I was part of a tiny minority, and also felt culturally adrift. I was working class among more privileged peers. I got through it, grateful for the scholarship and the opportunity to leave my midwest community for the cultural advantages here. So, it built character. Can we move on?
5
My students at a research university (I teach French, which is of course highly desirable in Texas) are much more interested in a degree than an education. The reason I teach French is that I love the language and literature, as well as the culture, of a country I only visited after graduation from college. l was brought up in a family of academics where intellectual curiosity was not just means to an end but an end of its own. My students don't even watch the news or read a paper to find out what's going on in the world around them. I wonder how these kids are going to get on in the world once they leave campus.
6
If college is the new high school ... we need to forgive the college debts and make it free for everyone from here on out. We all pray.
4
Such a thought-provoking column, Mr. Bruni. Thank you. Like you, I found a sliver of optimism among these cruel college stories in your final paragraph. The key to my own rich university education (I graduated from a fairly reasonable priced state university in 1981) was in building a few pivotal relationships with gifted professors. These people could really teach, and often did so under incredible pressure to conduct more research. Their all-important tenure often hung in the balance, but they simply and beautifully taught, even in the face of losing their positions. In today's stressful and irrationally competitive college world, gifted and committed professors can make a student's experience not only useful but dare I say? Magical.
1
I've heard bad stories about college from my grandkids...professors who never show up for lectures but leave them to the TA's. What exactly are my grandkids paying for? I worked for the gov't, and at some point, a degree was a requirement. I knew the work, and a degree should not be necessary. And people without a degree, already in the system, could not advance even though they had valuable experience and knowledge. They did not have that piece of paper! Somehow, we need to get sensible about what jobs really "require" a degree, and what jobs do not. Many very successful top-level managers and directors came up through the workforce, starting in the proverbial mail room. The institutional knowledge gained through experience is a valuable commodity and should be recognized and rewarded just like "that piece of paper".
6
I am a college professor teaching at the other end of the spectrum: CUNY, New York City College of Technology. We are an open enrollment college, but I bring my teaching experience from Notre Dame and Yale to my students, giving them I hope the best education money can buy. Every day my students, many first time college students from minority families, most of them working, inspire me to give them my best, help them have a foundation to rise and perform in the 21st century professional world. I invite Mr. Bruni to join me in my classroom in Brooklyn and see what I believe is a hopeful view of the future of higher education.
11
Now if only Albany would fund us!!!
1
I am sorry but education is about learning, not anything else. If students are accepted not on their ability to learn but on some other metric(s) they will be shocked to meet superior learners. Life is a pyramid, not flatlands. The higher is the College/University ranked the more likely you are going to compete against extremely intelligent peers. If you cannot deal with this, you should rethink your choice.
6
Always wary of a comment that starts "I am sorry, but..." Sure, college is "about" learning, but how many cultural factors affect learning? Simply being born into a family of college-educated people gave me an enormous advantage. What do we do for kids whose ability to learn needs support and encouragement from a culture with built-in inequities? Education is maybe our greatest opportunity to break free of our origins. It should be offered as generously as a great nation can afford.
4
@Vee.eh.en While we in US are crying about built-in inequalities other nations are passing us in tech and science. Learning is hard for everyone, so smartest, most hardworking, or a combo of both will always get ahead. Everything else is just an excuse.
4
How many bad calls can one country make? This is a tale of disaster, a suffocation of skills, and a total rejection of the obvious need for talented, properly educated people in the future. College may or may not break "us", but seems hellbent on making or breaking the US. This is an incredibly irresponsible situation, exploited for every cent it's worth. College students won't be the only ones paying for it.
6
Wish Frank Bruni had mentioned the Harvard University Extension School. It offers residential and long-distance learning, is inexpensive, and provides a first class Harvard education from Harvard professors.
3
Who told Shannen the lie that Princeton had to be her goal? The answer: Princeton (and its enablers in the HE industry). Why? Answer: Princeton needs to show that it is taking students from diverse backgrounds and under-privileged communities. This is to make Princeton look good, not help Shannen. She could have chosen a small College anywhere on the East Coast/NE and thrived, with excellent faculty who would call her by her name, care about teaching her and her friends, and help her achieve her goals. Look at the small colleges; the big lies are where the money is doing all the talking.
10
It's hard to feel bad for a teenager who is so desperate to go to Yale that he or she is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Sounds more like a case of severe status anxiety. There are literally hundreds of other options. But we like to indulge all the feelings of our young folk now.
As for cruelty, what this writer should be more worried about is the demise of the American public university. Public universities are increasingly being whored out to corporate interests. The "industry of education" is engaged in the destruction of its own professional class through the growing use of underpaid part-timers for whom it is often a second job; non-tenure-track faculty who accept smaller salaries and heavier course loads because they are desperate; and the exponential growth of online courses, which displace jobs. Public universities increasingly demand that academics also play the role of fundraisers to secure money for their own work. For a generation now, we have watched the transformation of "college education" into "business transaction" and student engagement that embraces the old retail ethos, "the customer is always right."
To sweeten the pot ... if you choose to invest in a college education, you'll be up to your ears in debt during the prime years of your adult life. Now, that is cruel.
9
This is a situation that I can only address anecdotally, my nephew dropped out of college after one year and is now doing quite well as a carpenter. His younger brother just started law school, neither one went to an elite school. My older son dropped out of college after a semester and enlisted in the navy where he spent 12 years (Including 2 tours in Iraq), after he left the navy he went to a film school in Los Angeles and is now doing quite well as a camera man. My daughter graduated from a state school back in 2002 and then with 3 kids put herself through graduate school (much to her now ex-husbands chagrin), she is now a coordinator on the east coast helping place persons with disabilities find employment. My younger son is a sophomore at a CUNY school and I have nothing but faith that he will succeed. I never went to college (I’m one of those uneducated white people, but one who did not support the president ), my wife has a masters degree, so I suppose she was a driving force in the kids education. I guess what I’m trying to say is that there are many paths one can take that doesn’t require an “IVY” education
8
What we need is a better K-12 education offered in public schools throughout the country. Very few people need a college degree in order to do the jobs they eventually end up in--even if those jobs are "white collar," middle management, etc. No one needs to attend college to run a Staples or be an accountant, and yet employers in all sectors demand applicants have a degree.
Here's how we fix this:
1. Put way more resources into K-12. Emphasize critical reasoning skills above all, regardless of the discipline.
2. Offer 1- and 2-year certifications for the jobs people actually work: accounting degrees, management degrees, etc. No one needs a liberal arts education for any of them.
3. Require that all (yes, ALL) 18-20 year olds (after HS) perform mandatory service. That can be in the military, or not. This will convey skills and, more importantly, allow kids time to turn into adults, in a space and time designed for that (effectively serving one of the more important roles of residential college).
5
I'm an alumnus of Columbia University -- looking back from a distance of almost forty years on my Ivy League education and subsequent life, I realize I learned more being a suburban kid from the South living in New York City for four years than I did from my classes and books. It was a great example of Mark Twain's saying, "Don't let school get in the way of your education."
6
This column implies that professors don't care about "actual teaching" and that the universities have somehow failed everyone. Yes, there is need for reform. But there are TONS of programs at universities to assist poor and working class students, from writing centers to child care to the newfangled "student success centers." Many, many professors are trying their best to educate students who arrive in their classrooms woefully unprepared to be there. When you defund state schools to the point we have in the US, hand out diplomas to students just for showing up, and then wring your hands when students fail in college, you are not looking at the problem fairly. The schools need to be funded, tuition needs to be lowered, but don't lay the blame on the faculty. Yes, some profs, particularly at elite, research-focused schools, leave some teaching up to teaching assistants (ironically, this is often at the most elite universities; the more elite the school, the more traditional the teaching methods), but elsewhere faculty are adjuncts making $3K per course (without benefits) or, if they are lucky to have a tenure-track job, they have ever-increasing teaching and service loads and starting salaries around $45-60K--livable for sure, but when you enter the workforce at age 40 after earning a PhD with plenty of student debt, hardly luxurious. Now they are supposed to wave a magic wand and undo all the neglect poor, unprepared students have suffered their entire lives.
5
Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, OH (outside of Cleveland) is the antithesis of what Bruni describes. Solid liberal arts education, inclusive, service-oriented, affordable, excellent job success rate after graduation, and has one of the top music conservatories in the country. We auditioned in NYC and other bigger cities, but Cleveland rocks when it comes to taking care of my kid and offering him the same vocal performance opportunities as the bigger name schools will if not better.
2
Based on this article, the book focusses on elite institutions. Why is that and what does it tell us about the average college-bound student? I teach at a very high-quality community college. Our students can earn certificates and associates degrees in marketable trades as well as prepare for transfer to quality public land grant universities or private not-for-profit colleges. The race for a degree from an elite institution could be reduced if the rest of us stopped rewarding folks simply because they went to such schools. We need to stop treating people with degrees from public universities like also-rans. For example, why is our Senate crammed with Ivy grads? Is our government more functioning, more a truly representative republic because of this? Are they truly the best and the brightest? If we want a meritocracy, we need to act like it.
9
College most definitely does NOT make or break us. This idea is phony baloney sold to us by the academic/government /financial complex. We're taught like automatons from day one of our academic training, and the "be and think this way" attitude is inculcated every step from there. Only a person with a weak mind and a complete inability to think for him or herself would believe this. A quick read of the book "Educated" by Tara Westover shows otherwise. She had ZERO formal academic training up until the age of 16, and went on to be a Gates Cambridge Scholar through pure curiosity, individual initiative and diligence. Who was it that said: "History is bunk!"? I have an update: College is worse!
20
@Csmith -- If you can base your argument on one data point, so can I. My college and graduate school experiences were exactly the opposite of what you accuse the system of being.
16
@Csmith I've rarely heard anyone say..well..."college really isn't worth it.....its a waste of time and well.....you would be better off not attending college". College is another choice to decide. It cannot "make or break" someone but, the research shows that college grads out earn their none college peers across the board over their lifetimes. The bigger problem is the widening income gap and how families can bridge this gap. Whether its college or some other type of training. Another issue is the mental side of things : where do i fit in ? Am i college-ready ? Can my family afford it ? What do i want to study ? Where can i find some answers ? Who will help me ?...these can cause great anxiety in 18-19-20 yr old young adults ready to navigate their choices.
5
@Csmith College may not "make or break" a person, but there are many significant and important career paths that 100% closed if you don't go get at least a BA/BS, or advanced degrees.
No one is going to be a doctor, dentist, R.N. architect, scientist, lawyer, professor, or teacher without the degree(s)
Same is true for any of the engineering disciplines, like chemical, electrical, mechanical, or civil.
6
This image thing with colleges is commodifying higher education. In Canada, our universities regularly take out half-page ads in the Globe and Mail.
They are not cheap, and I wonder what the point is when our universities are overcrowded as it is. It's taking coal to Newcastle.
4
They may be trying to get more applications, while taking the same number of kids. This makes their statistics look more “selective” by US News standards. That ranking system has done enormous harm to higher education in the US.
1
Did we fail our daughter?
As immigrants coming to the US 35 years ago, we completely missed this whole dilemma. No one told us. We had no idea it existed. The year our daughter was born we started to contribute to a Pennsylvania 529 TAP College Savings program.
By the time she got to college her undergraduate education had been completely paid for - painlessly.
She never stops thanking us, pointing to so many of her friends who are saddled with debt they will probably never get out from under.
Had we known we were supposed to be participating in this silly upward mobile obsession about getting your kid into the right school, we too could have given our kid the privilege of being permanently in debt. Sorry babe! I guess we did fail you.
6
@Bernie Out of curiosity, what's your daughter doing now? You don't have to tell me everything. Just curious whether your daughter went on to get a good job. Maybe even if she is now married with a beautiful family or college gave her a richer understanding of the world (not everything needs to be about degrees and careers).
"... at the University of Texas at Austin, where ... a few professors in particular have decided to go back to the beginning, more or less, and pour extra energy into actual teaching."
I'm not sure how this gratuitous insult to professors helps to make your case. Is the implication that most professors aren't doing any "actual teaching"? Is the implication that most professors are using their "extra energy" drinking at the faculty club? Is the implication that going "back to the beginning" is the correct choice for universities in 21st century?
5
Princeton. Yale. Apparently Frank buys into the idea that the only worthwhile college education comes from an elite school.
Ya know why they are elite? Because those with money have made them so. Great educations can be had at any number of state universities and even...state colleges. Let's stop with the idea that an Ivy is the only key to a successful life.
8
This essay's very premise is wrong; not surprisingly its proposed solution is too. Mr. Bruni buys into the assumption that we need more college graduates, but we don't. When you look at the numbers of jobs actually being created, the ones that need higher order thinking are far outnumbered by ones that don't require that level of training. According to the US Dept of Labor, the jobs with the fastest projected growth are solar photovoltaic installers, wind turbine service technicians, and home health aides, none of which require a bachelor's degree. Among the careers lower down the fastest growing list, several such as nurse practitioners, genetic counselors, and mathematicians, require more than a bachelor's degree, either a master's or a Ph.D.
Also according to the US Dept of Labor, the occupations with the greatest number of people employed are retail sales, food prep and service, cashiers, and office clerks. Of the top 10, only registered nurses and general managers typically need a bachelor's degree.
So for most people, the options will be either go deeper into debt for graduate degrees, or take a job that doesn't require an expensive bachelor's. The only one who seems to grasp this is Andrew Yang. Pushing more people through college isn't the answer to stagnating incomes. Paying non-college occupations more is. If we did that, fewer people would go into debt for a degree they don't need or can't complete.
6
@Nikki Have you compared the salary and job security for an RN vs a food service employee?
1
As a tenured professor in several business schools (for roughly 40 years), I saw a lot of changes. I even participated in making some of the changes mentioned by Mr. Bruni. But here's some advice to aspiring students.
Make your first college a good one. It doesn't have to be a great one. Learn "how to learn" there. Show them what you can do. In two years, or in four years if you need it, start looking for the master's program/school that's REALLY going to be your professional platform. And put everything you have into THAT program/school. Beg/borrow/steal. Trust me. After your first job, nobody is going to care where you did your undergrad degree.
I did my undergrad work (I know a long time ago) in a respectable school. I did OK-well. Spent some time sorting things out about my life/career focus. Offered a free ride at a top ivy and wait-listed at a mid-west school with a remarkable program in my area of interest. I headed west. Best decision I ever made.
4
@SurlyBird This is the correct advice. People should listen.
The cruelty begins well before college. Where did childhood go?
I'm inclined to say that the American University is a moribund institution, self-serving, obsolete, with a cost that has outpaced inflation five-fold since 1980.
3
My son excelled at a small mid-western liberal arts college after flailing about in high school and getting his GED. He took his LSAT after spending a year in as an Americorps volunteer and has such a high score he’s been accepted to several top ten law schools. This article just feeds the elitist anxiety that the only success and happiness in life is a top ten college degree. It’s just so ridiculous and not reality. Do well in college and experience life. There are many opportunities for those who do well in college— wherever and whatever that college is or may be.
542
@Loosely
It's also ridiculous that so many are in a position where college is, or is seen as, the only path to success and the only education available after high school. In Germany college is free. But they use rigorous exams to control admission. But they provide outstanding non-college education opportunities. And a lot of people that did not attend college have very good jobs. As far as how we do it in the US: It doesn't have to be this way. We should rebuild our entire education system from the ground up. The only people currently being well served are those behind the "university president-Wall Street student load industrial complex!"
87
@Jeff
I went to a top 20 law school and did summer study in Europe when I was in my 30’s. The European students could not understand wh I hadn’t just gotten my law qualification in my 20’s. A European lawyer was horrified that prior to law school, I had been a legal secretary. While there are plenty of problems with the US system, insisting that teens make decisions about what they will do with the rest of their lives is not ideal, either.
66
@Loosely
THANK YOU for saying this. It needs to be shouted.
15
I wish Bruni wrote about community colleges, where half of all post- high school students are studying.
I wish Bruni wrote about liberal arts colleges, which prioritize teaching over research.
I wish Bruni wrote about the successes of the system for the majority rather than the fraught admissions experience of a few.
My kids will be the fifth generation of my family to attend college. Many but not all of my family’s colleges have been “elite”. It has not made a substantial difference in their lives.
One family member is a Yale graduate who is 100% unsuccessful in work and family life. Another worked their way through public non-residential college and now rules the world.
Get over it, people.
796
Modern day helicopter parents do a grave disservice to their kids. They think they “have done right” by them but have done nothing but create a generation of insipid adults who lack any empathy for anyone else. It’s scary.
76
@Cousy
I wish Bruni pointed out that the difficult stories in Paul Tough's book have much less to do with college as an institution and everything to do with the radical income inequality in this country.
187
@Cousy
I wish Bruni mentioned the plight of young men, who get only 40%of college degrees. Our younger boys drop out of school more than girls, are kicked out more, are jailed more, and commit suicide 4 TIMES as often as girls.
When girls were behind in school, we helped them catch up. Why don’t we help our boys now?
71
The ground has shifted. In earlier days, a college education was necessary only if one was heading for a career, e.g., in law, medicine, research, teaching. Otherwise, plenty of opportunities for high-school graduates. College is now a requirement for most jobs, student debt now exceeds credit card debt and the cost of college has far outpaced inflation. None of this is good news but Congress is indifferent.
2
And what shall we do about the young people who are making something of themselves without college but who can’t move up the corporate ranks because they lack a degree...in something, anything, only to prove they can “do” college?
43
Clara is being badly advised by her parents. The undergraduate education offered by Middlebury College, of which I am a proud graduate, is in many fields superior to that offered by Yale or any of the Ivies. In a small college without graduate programs, students actually get taught in small classes by the people whose names are in the catalogue, rather than struggling teaching assistants.
I went from Middlebury (in 1959) to an Ivy League graduate program in English. I was bored stiff; at Middlebury I had read, in depth, just about everything I encountered in my graduate coursework. I moved over to a state university without the smug, self-satisfied air of the Ivies and had a successful career as a university professor, academic department head, and dean. And the Middlebury of today is much better -- and much better when considered against the Ivies -- than it was in my day long ago.
The Ivies are hugely overrated in the fields I know anything about. The top state universities and small liberal-arts colleges are far more student-oriented and simply better academically than the Ivies, which badly need a calling-out and drastic, top-to-bottom reform.
5
Poor students who have gone to exceptional colleges have always been the exceptionally bright ones since they depend on scholarships. Should unexceptional students be given acess to a pathyway they don't deserve or cannot make the best use of? Bruni's argument seems to accord with the city's latest endeavor to wipe out gifted programs because vast numbers of Hispanic and Black students are excluded from them. People will always be excluded, and those who are included have worked hard to get in. How is it that Chinese and Korean students, whose immigrant parents often speak little to no English, and are at a much greater cultural disadvantage, manage to figure out the system and advance into the best public high schools? As well as into elite colleges, though at artificially low rates because they would displace too many white students if admissions were purely merit based. Families who value education see better results with children than families who don't. Many factors go into valuing education as a path to social and economic advancement--maybe that's the fundamental problem that needs to be addressed in black and Hispanic poor communities. Why aren't parents more engaged in educating their children well? What are the limitations on entire communities that hold them back?
3
"At its best, it remains a ladder to higher earnings, greater economic security and dreams fulfilled. For some lucky students, it’s still an exhilarating and enormously fun rite of passage."
What happened to, "At it's best, college education creates a population that can think carefully about our world, understand something of why things happen the way they do, and make informed decisions at election time" ?
Oh, because that's not part of a college education anymore in our crass and money-grubbing society.
And this is an enormous part of our problem.
5
High schools are pushing out students that aren't ready for college - or life really. So then colleges have to take who they have and try and make up for lost time. So many students have repeat subjects they supposedly already took, take remedial classes etc. All those classes cost money and slow down the time to graduation. Turning out smarter college grads starts with smarter high school grads
4
I am on my second go-round with child #2. I've always had an interest in colleges and I think I understand the process well. One recurring thought I keep having is that the elite schools in the US run the risk of marginalizing themselves. When GPA's of 4.5 (on a scale that runs to 4.0) and SAT's of 1500 aren't good enough to get into these schools, kids lose interest. 'Why bother?' is the most common feedback I hear as we travel along this process. In my view, all of the action these days is taking place in those still very good 2nd tier colleges, both private and state. At least kids feel they have a shot at these schools, and I know from personal experience, life/career outcomes that are just as rewarding.
2
We can’t complain about the high cost of education while we elect people from a party who are working to destroy all public education. Accessible high quality public education is the goal of only one political party. The other party wants a country filled with low skilled and low educated wage slaves. There are two visions for the future of America and the pain and unfairness around higher education are predictable symptoms of the political movement that is denying higher education to more and more people. No matter how much pain is created it will never get better until we as a political majority decide to take back control of the system from the rich and cynical leaders who are turning our country into a plantation. We don’t need analysis, we need revolution, and if this is part of the pain necessary to have it then it will be worth it.
6
When researching colleges for my daughter, one of the resources I found useful was the NY Times' own charts showing what proportion of students at a given college were from the top 1% income group, and what proportion came from the bottom 40%.
I'm a single parent and while I knew my daughter would likely receive financial aid, it was very important to me that she not be the only student she knew not flying off to Europe for skiing over winter break. So an economically diverse student body was important in addition to ethnic diversity. It narrowed the choices considerably.
3
Bruni’s right: the pursuit of admission to college has become cruel, a lemming’s rush to a cliff of social Darwinism, a moment when the herd gets thinned. And even those who make the leap and land in the lush gardens of the Ivy League may not gain access to God, however an applicant may define Him/Her.
As someone who has a pair of degrees from vaunted institutions, someone who has taught at one for some six years, but who found paradise teaching in the California Community college, I watch this annual thinning with an unbearable ache. First, that coveted degree is like a purple heart, an award few people ever see or know you as a recipient. Second, education at such universities is spotty at best, most often taught by Teaching Assistants who are smart and earnest but have no idea how to teach and, in the end, don’t want to teach. I was a TA. Smart, I don’t know, but I certainly was earnest and did not know how to teach. After six years at the university, simultaneously teaching at three community colleges, I did hit my stride, found that my blood loved teaching – making each meeting an opportunity for students to fall in love with the work of their own brains and to record that work with a good measure of pride – I left the university for a professorship at a community college. Like me, the community college was where those who love teaching found their country. So, it kills me that students choose so cruel a path when a better path is there, right before them.
4
At the risk of betraying my relatively folksy, working class roots, might I suggest an alternate path for striving adolescents? Community college. I had poor grades in high school because I had ADHD and everything bored me, but after getting a serious girlfriend and experiencing the shock of actually turning 18, I realized something had to change - my slacker ways couldn't continue. So I enrolled in community college and discovered something - I liked learning and I could actually get good grades if I tried hard enough. I also worked several part time jobs at this time and learned about work and people. I finished community college with a decent 3.5 GPA and transferred to a 4 year university to finish my 4 year degree in Accounting (in my state a 2 year AA degree guarantees you a place in a 4 year state college). I started my first salaried job 3 weeks after graduation making $57,000 in today's money. I got my CPA certification a few years later and now I make over $125K per year (in Florida, obviously I'd make a lot more in NYC). I know that I am by no means a crazy success story, but I am doing a lot better than some of these psychologically damaged kids stressing themselves into a coronary 50 years early. Not bad for community college, eh?
9
High schools were set up to prepare the majority of their students for industrial jobs. Now that those industrial jobs are gone, high schools are not preparing those students for higher education. A college in USA has become a "ladder to higher earnings" for which USA has perfected and gave to the rest of the world—the concept of competition, which has spun the cost of higher education out of control. A year at a top university was about $3,000 in 1966, which has risen 20 times higher to $60,000 at present. Why is college expensive? Because parents are ready to pay for it. The concept of the expensive elite universities has made education a business, and college education has been commercialized by monopolizing opportunities. They disburse branded educational programs which are not devised with the eventual ability of the students to have successful careers, but instead to look good and to add to the prestige of the faculty supposedly running them. The ability to raise funds, to put up new buildings, is the main motive, and for all that they need money. The fees are ever increasing to beat which the students have to take heavy loans. Elite college is not so much for learning, but is more for networking among rich students with contacts for lucrative careers. Thus the education system is becoming two-tiered: elite expensive Ivy League for the affluent, and public colleges and universities for the talented but middle-class.
5
Whatever happened to valuing higher education as a way to enrich one's mind and broaden one's perspective? Not
everyone sees higher education at prestigious schools as the path to happiness. Lots of us are lifelong learners, self-taught or state college educated, and all the better for it.
We evaluate quality of life by standards other than money and prestige.
I know a lot of people with advanced degrees who work "menial" service jobs part-time - waiting table, clerking at a store, cleaning or painting houses, caring for the elderly - to support themselves so they can create art, live simply close to nature, and have time for friends and family. I know other well-educated people who develop trades - carpentry, appliance repair, auto mechanics, catering, hair dressing, organic farming - and enjoy the autonomy of self-employment and self-determination.
8
Education should not be a privilege of the rich, but should instead be a right of students. Tuition-free higher education is feasible, if there is a political will. Since a degree does not necessarily mean a passport to getting a job in today's corporate and competitive world, not everyone need go for professional degrees. Quite often high schools in poor or rural areas are not able to prepare the students for the challenges and academic rigor of college. Only 35% of US citizens complete the four-year degree programs at colleges, highlighting the need of apprenticeships, technical colleges, community colleges, to prepare the rest for good quality jobs. However, higher education is required only for people pursuing professional careers such as medical and for academic research. Great disservice is done by encouraging everyone to attend college when many of the students do not have the aptitude for academics, and the same students are well suited for a vocation in the trades. Parents in the developing countries, such as those from the Punjab state of India world are prepared to even sell their property such as farmlands to send their children for higher education in Canada, USA, Australia etc. Many of such students land up in European countries as migrants doing odd jobs. Even if some of them become graduates from colleges in the western countries, their employability is never guaranteed.
4
College turned cruel when the rest of parenting and childhood turned cruel. Competitive, paranoid, over scheduled, Facebooked, and guilt ridden.
It's not economic insecurity. You can get a good job with a degree from a state school. You can still get a good job with a trade or by starting a small business.
Racking up six figure debts at your mother's insistence at NYU is NOT about economic anxiety.
It's about ego, driven by media. And it permeates our lives.
It used to be that it was fine to get a regular job, get married, live in an ordinary but decent community, raise your kids, live in a modest home, and take simple vacations. And that was a good life. Kids played, sports and activities were for fun, and state university was a good goal.
Sometime in the 80s the craze started for every kid to be a "superstar". Then media like HGTV started promoting granite countertops as necessary. Now we have social media to brag about everything from college to vacations to kindergarteners reading habits to a six year old's "Disney Birthday Trip Reveal."
Remember when you just had a birthday party around your kitchen table?
Our whole culture is ego driven. Why would we expect college to be any different?
Parents, turn off Facebook and start saying NO. "No" to going into debt for Disney, "no" to overkill, "no" to an activity every night, "no" to the "Summer Reading Log" for your five year old, "no" to the instagrammable $100 Halloween costumes.
And "no" to NYU.
16
@A F
What a wonderful country we would all live in if we just all followed this advice.
Anxiety among students about their future can be correlated with transitioning; into college during the freshman year, and then out into the "world" for seniors. Thus, two important interfaces influence the present-day higher education scenario: FIRST when the students join a college/university after graduation from High School, i.e. making sure that they are not just college-eligible but are also college-ready, and the SECOND when they secure an employment after obtaining a college degree. To guarantee employment one has to establish a fit between the student aptitude and the college plan and that would require investment in providing counselors. We need to rethink the whole concept of education. Funding for education is not equitable. Lack of funding is forcing some remote-area schools in USA to close, making the school children to travel long distances to schools located far away from their residences. 1200 students of Tyrrelstown Educate Together National School in Dublin recently faced indefinite closure of their school, to carry out structural repairs, which could have been done during school holidays. Disruptions in teaching at school do affect the education of children. How can one expect graduates from such High Schools to be as college-ready as those from the elite schools?
1
Last month, my student, Dr. Amandeep Kaur Sra, now a Sr. Lecturer at Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Texas at Dallas, received the $25,000 “2019 Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award — UT System”. The University said that teachers like Dr. Sra change lives for the better every day in the classroom. I asked her how does she manage it with her students. “I connect with them, and understand how they learn by listening to them. This channel of communication facilitates the learning process” she said. No wonder, students approach her after class and, at times years after their graduation! Talking to the students not just about their coursework or their careers, but their personal struggles, their anxieties and depressions relaxes them and prepares them for success in career. A teacher should develop a feeling that he/she 'owns' the class, and thereby become approachable, friendly and well-prepared. Only then a fresh teacher can transform to becoming a seasoned teacher, who makes teaching a matter of joy.
4
Apart from the insanely expensive education of the elite Ivy league schools and colleges, the inequality and diversity among the educational institutions has been increasing, in general, over the years. The costs of school trips have been escalating over the years, simply because more and more parents can afford to pay large sums for their children, and therefore, the organizing teachers are on the look-out for farther and more exotic locations, and making a case for going there with all the geo- and historic learning options lurking there! Obviously, the children whose parents cannot afford to pay are left out. Such expensive foreign trips are being organized not just by the schools in Britain, but also of several 'developing' nations like India, where the number of billionaires is rising by leaps and bounds. It has become a social pressure for the parents to admit their children into 'swanky' private international schools mushrooming in all the big towns of India, who charge heavy tuitions fees for these 'exclusive' schools - as much as the equivalent of one thousand British Pounds per month per child right from KG class! For such parents paying for the annual school trip to Europe or elsewhere by paying the equivalent of two or three thousand pounds is not a big deal. This way they also retain their newly acquired financial 'high-caste' system.
1
What really disgusts me about this rat-race is that colleges are complicit. Top, middling and only OK, they've spent a generation presenting 18-year-old kids with "financial packages" that include loans you don't lose even if you go bankrupt while the colleges themselves have built luxury dorms, fancy cafeterias that serve restaurant quality food, incredible work-out facilities, to give students a quality of life no one expected at college during the 1970s, when I went, and that many may spend years paying for.
It also put students on the misery treadmill of working long hours, high anxiety, intense and unfriendly competition and ugly levels of snobbery starting in...preschool.
Both of my daughters went to small liberal arts colleges. Both had good experiences. Both now have good, interesting lives. Neither is on a rat-race treadmill. I consider that a victory.
7
The society has to worry less about the value the brand of a college which has good facilities, and attach more significance to the merit of the student. Selectivity does not necessarily correlate with potential for employment, or for success in career. Again a college is not the be all and end all. Students at a vocational school in The Netherlands had multiple job offers with a number of employers, much before finishing their course of education. Employers know that graduates from public universities don’t have high expectations of initial salary, so they recruit them for training into valuable staff, at much less cost.
My parents were both first generation college graduates from SUNY. I went to a SUNY college as an undergrad, which my family fortunately could afford. I was able to get into a competitive PhD program at a private university, alongside peers with Ivy League backgrounds. Now I teach at a CUNY community college, alongside some colleagues with Ivy League educations. We are all very dedicated to teaching. All of which is to say, education is largely what you make of it, and if you work hard, you can be a contender even in an unfair and dwindling
job market like academia.
2
Having spent 50 years as a scientist/teacher/educator, when I look back I think quite a few changes have occurred in the processing of higher education. A major change is that the young students these days hardly do any formal reading from books or in libraries. Reading books for the sake of knowledge is considered wasteful, with the argument that all the knowledge one needs is available at Google by pressing a button on a smart-phone. So, why read books? The driving force for this trend is, of course, the smart-phone, and the addiction of the social media. Never before in the recent history of educational institutions, such a huge change in the attention profile of young students was either seen or thought of. Attention to writing is even worse than to reading. Hardly any student writes things by hand, and instead types it out on a smart-phone, often in short-hand Emoji-infested language, full with grammatical mistakes. How to convince them that while one writes a text in a notebook or a paper-sheet, the mind keeps correcting it right there and then, bringing out the best in the writer of any subject? The logic of writing with originality is being lost at the altar of a smart-phone.
7
A recent malady is the absenteeism of students from classes. Some students have started saying, "Why attend college, when all the knowledge is there on the Internet?". Many students of medical schools run by top Ivy league institutions (Harvard or Johns Hopkins, and several others) hardly attend lectures during the first two years, not that they do not realize that they have got selected in these top medical schools after a lot of effort, and are paying high fees of USD 60,000 or so. It is also not that they are whiling away their time. Rather, they prefer to prepare themselves for the STEP 1 by attending online video lectures, YouTube lectures or virtual pre-clerkship courses and, studying the basic information from Wikipedia, etc. What is taught in classrooms is of a routine nature, which can be learnt from notes borrowed from fellow-students, but for doing well in STEP 1, which decides their future course in the medicine career, they need to learn more about topics which are knowledge-heavy, with the vastly specialized terminology, say microbiology or cell biology, etc.
3
There is an aversion of today's students to learning of simple arithmetic. The late Sir Harold W. Kroto, the Chemistry Nobel Laureate from University of Sussex, who founded the subjects of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, and worked hard to promote use of Internet for education, lamented once, "Ask a school/college student to divide or multiply two simple numbers these days, and calculators come out. What is the harm if some useful Tables can be memorized?” Young analytical and innovative minds should learn science well to stay ahead of the software disruptions like Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things, he felt. “Many young people having smart-phones don’t know how it works, or how GPS works. The do-all chips have taken away the thrill of learning science. In old days we could actually see how a valves-radio worked or open an analog watch to see its mechanism. But One needs University Physics knowledge to study present-day chips”, said Kroto, "Science Education must lead to curiosity". But those who go to a college or university should not only use the opportunity to learn from textbooks and teachers, but they must also take the learning process a step beyond, i.e. learn also through discussions with fellow students. Prof. Kroto was candid enough to admit that perhaps half of his own learning at university came through interactions with other students.
2
Materialism has led to an erosion of the traditional respect of a teacher and the student-teacher relationship is currently at its lowest ebb. A teacher comes mechanically to a classroom, and teach the stuff without bothering to check if the students grasped it. The concentration of students in a class is lower than ever. Hardly any teacher takes extra class after the regular hours. Good teachers, such as those from elite graduate programs not only remain updated in their fields in order to meet the emerging intellectual challenges, but they should also have the willingness and skill to spend extra time with students do maintain personal contact with students.
1
My undergradute degree, Ph.D. and M.D. were all at large public universities. I married a Harvard Ph.D. (she also got an M.D.) so I got a taste of both cultures. Her pedigree did open doors for her because it guaranteed the excellence of her training to those who were evaluating her. To them she was "the chosen". But the "unchosen" need not weep. And please don't give up. They can still go for a graduate degree or fellowship at the "hallowed" institutions. I did the latter at UCSF (not ivy league but in the same league) and felt some of the same mojo when applying for jobs. I have three children who all attended or are attending non-ivy universities. One graduated with honors in a dual degree program and then got a Ph.D. in a science field. One graduated with two degrees from a large mid-western university. One is a junior in aerospace engineering with a 4.0 GPA at a public university. They all say they are happy. I agree with all the points made by this article and did read Tough's book on success in children when I was raising my children.
3
Education in the United States is a hollow joke. I did not go to highly ranked schools but did well in college and law school. I earned a BA with highest distinction/Phi Beta Kappa from University of of Iowa and graduated 2nd in my class from John Marshall Law School, where I served on law review. Unfortunately, these achievements mean absolutely nothing unless you went to a top-ranked school. I know first hand: I now work for family and make less money than friends from high school who have no college degree.
The state of education in our country is such that someone could go to Harvard/Yale or other elite schools, earn poor grades or otherwise under perform, and still be considered as having a degree more valuable than the most accomplished individual at any state school. Our country values rank and prestige over student accomplishments. Accordingly, elite students are tracked to be the future leaders while everyone else becomes beaten down with student loans. It's really quite sad.
9
In Mr. Bruni's otherwise fine essay, he neglects two (2) key points.
1) Most of the jobs available in the present economy DO NOT require a college education. Possibly one-third of the jobs available require higher education. The expense of pursuing a degree for a majority of our young people is inappropriate (a mistake) at this early stage in their lives.
2) Many of the colleges and universities in the USA are research institutions. Tenure is often based on advancing our knowledge in esoteric areas. Federal grant funding often drives this research. Instruction of (especially) the freshman is not a high enough priority at our major research institutions; U Texas Austin being an apparent exception.
3
One of the reasons kids stress about getting into fancy schools is because the fancy schools tend to have more and better internships. It's not enough to graduate with a 4 year degree and believe you are getting a job, any job. It really helps to have internships. Fancy school = fancy internship = full time offer after school = some hope of paying off your loans before you retire. This is true for a lot of people.
This was interesting but somewhat oversimplified Opinion article.
6
According to my calcuations that is an average of less that $37,000 per student.
Ah the classic canard of we need MOAR!!! What America needs is a reckoning with why it's economy isn't producing jobs that pay well enough to have the standard of living most expect. That does not mean MOAR! It actually means less. Ecological overshoot, over population and previous generations ability to spend away their childrens wealth are the underlying reasons. Simply churning out more graduates won't fix the underlying issue. It'll just create more debt slaves for careers that don't exist.
2
Sadly, the privileged elite have made (higher) education the velvet rope.
The only problem? An "uneducated" populace could do something really horrible like elect Donald J Trump.
Ring any bells?
4
It’s kind of nice so many are suggesting the things others don’t need, after they had access to them all.
3
Somewhere on this road of life we fell for the advertisement that a college degree was a must have, kind of like the right toothpaste was going to solve all our social needs and get us the girl or boy of our dreams. People! it was all an advertisement gimmick to pick your pockets of your disposable income. Bank system, DeVos (one example of many) and lobbyists who used this higher education scare tactics for their own greed never once trying to figure out how to use the power of higher education for the betterment of mankind. They are using these same scare tactics to get you into buying bonds or sticking money into 401k’s so they can fee you to death.
2
Mr. Bruni, you've committed a cardinal sin by mentioning the University of Texas on the Times op ed page. Are you not aware that the ONLY colleges and universities worth mentioning are all within 50 miles of the Atlantic Coast (Palo Alto excepted)and are elite private schools? All the rest of us out here in flyover country are condemned to waste our lives at major public universities.
3
@Buckeye Hillbilly
But if you live in Texas, and are planning to continue living there, UT is a BIG DEAL. Ideas about what constitute "prestige" universities are always somewhat regional.
Best? Really?! "At its best, it remains a ladder to higher earnings, greater economic security and dreams fulfilled". Wow, you've certainly missed the point of higher education, Mr. Bruni. Pity for you and thousands of others.
2
As I read the comments, I am struck by the wide variety of interpretations of success. Is it only measured by money and power? One can choose to be content with intellectual fulfillment, a modest home, food on the table, and decent health care. A happy life can be a gorgeous sunset at a high school football game next to a mate of a couple decades even if one's income isn't providing annual trips to Europe or the latest sports car. A capable, hard-working young person with a degree from most states' public universities will be just fine; when will we do the math and realize that not every excellent student can go to the 15 or 20 prestigious universities over which so many obsess? Penn State suited me just fine, and I've never been unable to find solid employment, but I'm not trying to rule the world, either. I'm just trying to raise my kids and enjoy the day.
2
Paul Tough did a great deal to create this problem with his celebration of "grit." It allowed educators, parents and children themselves to feel not "gritty' enough along with being not "smart" enough.
The whole chase for so-called elite education is a joke. The schools claim their elite status by setting up a debilitating process that leaves behind exactly what the self-fulfilling prophecy predicts: High achieving, low body fat, high anxiety, incurious students who are primarily interested in knowing what's going to be on the next test and where they can get a beer.
There are hundreds and hundreds of better colleges, where joy is possible, curiosity is an asset and the incoming SAT scores are meaningless.
3
There are a lot of comments on here with competing views on what the reality is. I know I wield my own story around as if it cuts through everyone else's. I put a lot of effort into some classes in college. I really enjoyed my first year. With testing out, I completed 49 credits. Was that the real world or is life after college real? Is understanding modern German culture as important as keeping up with paperwork for my current job? I don't know anything about how colleges are run. I worked at a university library for awhile. I liked how thoughtful all were. In the end I'm run by emotions probably more often than critical thinking and facts. I've lost most social ties and haven't found or sought replacements. I escaped without a drinking or drug problem. Didn't get meningitis. No STDs. I do have student loans. I still make mistakes. I have friends who didn't go to college who look at it as a mark against them, yet they're just as good or better at their jobs. The reality is few jobs require that you know anything about enlightened despots or the social contract or the Decameron or Shakespeare. I liked college even loved it but that's more likely a defect.
1
The sad thing I experienced at Columbia University graduate school was seeing international students being offered scholarships while hard working Americans from poor backgrounds being bypassed and taking out huge loans. This is completely unacceptable considering Columbia University is an American institution. Yet, it provides more aid to international students than American students. We are all being scammed by higher education.
9
Is it just the colleges that are cruel, or our society? Middle class jobs started disappearing as early as the 1970s. Tax cut after tax cut increased the pie for the wealthiest Americans. The checks and balances of capitalism including sensible regulations and strong unions have been swept aside, while the private lives of Americans are monitored on the street, in the workplace, and as they interact on social media, on their phones, or simply relax using any device. The de-funding of public universities, state and community colleges that began in the 1980s has reached the point where many would be more accurately called private schools. Two thirds of college faculty are part of the gig economy.
College became painful and anxiety producing with all of life in America. For many of us we are now living what people of color have always experienced in this country.
Colleges cannot solve these value based problems. That we have one set of colleges; the Ivy Leaque for the most privileged Americans and one; community colleges for the least privileged is a illustration of the problem itself.
Who do we want to be as a nation? Can we be a people together or will we always prize individualism and great individuals more than what is achieved as a group? Is there a balance where individuals and society as a whole can thrive?
It is the cruelty of our society in the 21st century that is such a burden to students and their families.
4
Maybe instead of blaming the college admission systems and the lack of a top quality high school education, the author should be highlighting the successes of people who did not go to prestigious schools.
Showing High School graduates that their future can be bright without a degree from overpriced expensive prestige schools would be a much better theme for such a book.
When I went to college, it was about getting a better job than my father had. That is the way it was for many of my peers at the time. So today, going to college in order to get a better job is nothing new.
Those who are going to college "to find themselves, make friends, or have a fun experience" have someone paying their way.
Poor students who are lucky enough to go on to college need to get it done and get out and get a job. And even then they are stuck with student loan debt.
And those students who experience culture shock, should view it as a leaning experience about the other half. Remember college is like high school, after you graduate you will never see or hear from 99% of the people you knew in those institutions.
1
I graduated high school in 2013. I chose a pricey private college to set my focus on early in my high school career because it carried a specialty course load that catered to the field in which I now work. I spent my time, from 7am-8pm, at that school to accumulate the extra-curriculars and outside credentials to make myself a better candidate. My current loans sit at around $20,000, and though I received what would amount to a half-scholarship, and kept a 3.4 average (now considered on the low side) and 9 total AP courses. Here is what I can say for certain, regarding the current state of college affairs:
1. Your kids are on drugs. And if they're not taking those prescribed they're selling them to kids like me, with no time to study and keep the "job" I see so many boomers complain about.
2. This problem is not relegated to the Ivy schools; inflation, separation of the classes and an indifference towards the poor and disadvantaged is happening at Every school, public and private.
3. Money gets you everything. It gets you friends, it gets you better essay scores, it gets you into clubs and spaces you wouldn't normally.
4. No one cares about us. Simply put, the sentiment from older generations is 'What's so bad about not getting into an Ivy', while working class students are asking 'Will I be able to make enough money in time to secure myself against an inevitable Recession and the shortage of basic food and water.
5
Good students who later become successful in their professional and personal lives learn in spite of their education, not because of it. Most (not all) state colleges provide the transition period from lax high schools to rigorous professional graduate education setting out a level playing field. Even the most elite graduate schools choose the majority of their students from the ranks of the non-elite colleges. After all the heavy drinking partying types flunk out those who work hard and keep their goals focused succeed in life, probably at a higher rate than those who glide smoothly from prep schools into the Ivy League colleges.
Unsolicited advice for new and prospective college students from a grad out for ten years this past May:
Unless you're in a handful of niche fields, employers don't care where you matriculate. Public universities in state with a small group of students you already know is a great launch point freshman year.
Live cheap (at home, off-campus shared housing, learn to cook), and prepare to live like that for at least five years after you graduate, probably closer to 10.
Ditch the minor & learn a hard skill--data analysis, Spanish fluency, trades classes--get broad with your skillset, embrace being a generalist.
Look for extracurriculars and clubs that will build your soft skills--public speaking, political organizing, facilitation, agenda making, minute-taking--and you'll be golden when you walk into your first job and volunteer to take on the menial tasks like you should.
Mess around and explore new people, ideas, styles, relationships, RELIGIONS (Ramadan fastathons, temple, mass), food, & skills (gotta hang drywall for Habitat for Humanity). You'll be stressed but take full advantage of all the opportunities at your fingertips and those magical gaps between class and internships or class and more class.
2
Education is a mess and at its heart it is a false construct. Grade inflation, snowplow parents, the degrading of standards so students feel better about themselves. And a constant has been that administrators have worked to make the curriculum easier and have washed out top talent as to teachers. They leave. Higher education is NOT a trade school. Even a trade school to a better job. That takes something else. A scary idea is that the high-end schools have become great at selecting people who do well at school. Because that's been their job for the past 4 years. You ever watch college football? You watch the pros? You ever wonder why the great talent with the high-end contract doesn’t make it IN the pro’s? It’s because college football is a different game and they are kids. Sure, some superstars step up to the next level and make it. But the ones who make a career out of the game are not the superstars. They are the ones who mature later. They put in the hard work. And that’s life. Failing IS a part of school. It is an important part, it doesn’t mean that you are a failure, it means that you need to reevaluate and adjust, move on and work harder. Not everyone gets a trophy, nor should they.
When you fall for the "winner take all" political and economic mindset, you become the tool of the system. When you believe you must "get the best grades to attend the BEST school," you set yourself up for self-criticism and failure. So whenever you fall short of "success," it's YOUR fault.
Families today feel the pressure to succeed. Parents fall into the collective non-stop competitive environment that says, "Your kid HAS to be the best!" Otherwise, you admit your child is "mediocre" and due a life of hardship and poverty.
And then there are the economic pressures. Not only are kids expected to have the smarts, they're now pushed to earn athletic scholarships to pay the high price for that "best" school. Now the pressure is doubled.
And now students are told to "separate yourself from the herd." They now can't ONLY have straight As and athletic performance, they have to VOLUNTEER somewhere! More pressure!
It's total insanity for kids today. Why? Because we've bought into the "only the best survive" mentality. Apparently, somewhere along the way, we agreed to giving 2 out of 10 students the keys to prosperity. The other eight kids can go fly a kite!
Plus, the college degree from the best school now has to be the RIGHT degree! "Oh you don't have a STEM diploma? Oops, too bad for you!" The goalposts have been moved again and again as a way for corporate America to shirk its responsibility to return prosperity to the people that provided it: Americans.
4
Education is a mess and at its heart it is a false construct. Grade inflation, snowplow parents, the degrading of standards so students feel better about themselves. And a constant has been that administrators have worked to make the curriculum easier and have washed out top talent as to teachers. They leave. Higher education is NOT a trade school. Even a trade school to a better job. That takes something else. A scary idea is that the high end schools have become great at selecting people who do well at school. Because that's been their job for the past 4 years. You ever watch college football? You watch the pros? You ever wonder why the great talent with the high end contract doesn’t make it IN the pro’s? It’s because college football is a different game and they are kids. Sure some superstars step up to the next level and make it. But the ones who make a career out of the game are not the superstars. They are the ones who mature later. They put in the hard work. And that’s life. Failing IS a part of school. It is an important part, it doesn’t mean that you are a failure, it means that you need to reevaluate and adjust, move on and work harder. Not everyone gets a trophy, nor should they.
In summary, this dysfunction is the manifestation of a rat race pushed down to our kids in a winner-take-all-society, amplified by social media, and Tiger/helicopter parenting. Where to start?
2
Re: "...Shannen exemplifies how college — once a bright beacon of promise and potent engine of advancement — has turned into something that’s often dysfunctional and downright cruel..."
While considering college / career-selection issues...I felt like a 'survivor', rather than an 'educated' person, after my, Fairfield county, (kindergarten to high school), experience!
The so, called, (American), '.Edu' system was / is so, wantonly, cruel from kindergarten to college that I made my vasectomy decision, (in part...), to avoid ever having to explain to offspring why they had such a debilitating, noneducational experience!
1
@Roy My 22 year old nephew is an electrician who learned his trade in high school vo-tech. He has a good full time job,owns 2 homes, (one he's rehabbing to be a rental), has had several vehicles, can always find side work for extra cash and has no student debt. We are very proud of him.
4
Frank,
I am sure you can find my email from NY Times. I teach at a large public university in So Cal. I have 15 nieces and nephews who are on or just graduated from college.
I have a PhD, my parents were professors. I have a brother and sister who are professors.
You really need to come visit.
I went to a liberal arts college, you need to visit these amazing places.
You really need to stop cherrypicking.
I would love for you to meet our amazing students. If you did your title would be different.
The problem is complex but I think you are missing big parts of the good and bad of academia. There are big problems and We do need to change, but your articles never make sense to those of us who live this every day.
2
I have always thought about school as a means not as an end (by itself). When I was 14 years old (many decades ago) my dream was to go to MIT to study Electronic Engineering. Since we lived in South America and my family was not ultra rich the dream did not materialize. Ten years later, after having become a Civil Engineer in one of the best schools in my country, I was accepted to do Graduate Studies in a Public University in the USA Northwest, where I got a graduate degree in Economics. Similarly, our two children went to both Public and Private Schools and Universities where they got their degrees including their PhDs. Now they teach at prestigious Universities. Of all the universities involved only the one where they got their final degree was top ten. Now come our five grandchildren, the oldest is a junior in a Boston University (not top ten), and the following one will go to College next year. I am confident that all of them will do fine, however, the third one is worried about having to become excessively indebted. I am sure the family will find, when the times come, that he should not worry. The fact that most Americans can go now to college should not be a problem, the right/appropriate solutions can and should be found for everybody who wants to do it. The only requirement is to have flexibility for choosing the right solutions
1
This article and comments amplify and broaden the issues facing education. Long ago (1948) I was a good student from a good high school in a small midwestern town. I was very aware of the 'legacy schools', but gained
admittance almost by accident. A librarian suggested I apply, and I received a very generous scholarship whose purpose was to 'increase diversity - by recruiting students who were not from New England! My original goal was to complete a scientific Ph.D, but when i realized that I better suited a service profession, I changed to pre-med. As a MD, I then returned to my mid-western State, I had a long satisfying career within my state University, that allowed my to live well and save 'enough' for my children and grandchildren to complete their educations debt free. I have supported my 'legacy' University continuously, but within my means. Throughout my long career, I have never believed that my excellent education was 'by definition' superior to that of my colleagues from 'lesser' institutions. The article and comments make clear how much has changed. The education system has become more and more part of the wealth-power system. Broad based learning, as the primary goal, has been replaced by preparation for employment, and education is to be managed as a business, wth ever greater dependence on student fees (debt), and growing limits on faculty power and salary. Money and power rule as in the rest of society. This is our formula for disaster.
2
I went to a small Catholic woman's college in 1964 and graduated in 1968. I saw many friends at our 50th reunion, and will see many again in a couple of weeks at a reunion we have had every year since we left college.
Never a scholar, but always curious I went to a more prestigious graduate school twenty years after graduation, when the youngest of our 4 children was a toddler. I had some great jobs, but received more satisfaction from volunteering on the town level. It gave me the flexibility of caring for my children as they grew, and I now have the same flexibility to be there for my grandchildren.
1
"Along with Shannen’s distress, it may also help explain why more and more college students report and seek help for mental health issues. According to the American College Health Association, the percentage of students who profess a degree of anxiety that affects their studies has risen to 27.8 from 18.5 a decade earlier. The percentage who say that about depression has risen to 20.2 from 11.6."
Interesting to bring this up in this context. This could also be due to the fact that: a) more colleges are offering counseling; b) prioritizing mental health is less stigmatized; and c) because more students are in therapy they are actually getting diagnoses and treatment. Many of the so-called "bootstraps" stories that have been shared here in the comments section could easily be signs of anxiety and depression. Receiving therapy wasn't always as accessible (and there are still many things we can do to improve that accessibility), promoted by colleges, or recognized as a medical condition that requires treatment. We do have to make radical changes to the outrageous credentials inflation that has led to college degrees being a requirement for the disappearing middle-class. However, I see those numbers as good news that students are more open to receiving treatment rather than limping along with the brain equivalent of arthritis.
1
Look, there’s a frenzy to get into a small of number of schools, fomented by the disproportionate amount of coverage they receive in the NYT and elsewhere. This creates an enormous about of anxiety regarding college admissions.
It’s not entirely the fault of the so-called elite universities. Though you claim to be appalled, I’m beginning to think YOU’RE the problem.
3
Given the public options in most States there are very few reasons to take exorbitant loans to get a college education. In New York, go to a Community College and pick a marketable major. Get an Associates degree and transfer your credits to a SUNY school to complete your Bachelor's degree. Work part time throughout your college experience. If you are concerned about the "shame" of attending Community College, not to worry, exclude it from your resume. No employer will ask or care. If it takes you longer to climb the ladder than your peers with degrees from high-priced schools, get over it, it was what you could afford. Invest your money and send your children to the better branded schools if it's that important to you. Life is not fair, sometimes it takes a few generations to make it to the "top".
The student loan debacle itself is a direct result of predatory, government-inspired lending to gullible children and the parents that advise them. Colleges have a greater incentive to increase costs vs. controlling them, as they incur no costs for loan defaults.
5
@J78
Agree; somehow banks moved into educational systems and dominated the student loan process. They charge interest rates which increase the loan cost. If a student does not graduate in debt, it is probably due to family finances. I graduated from UC Berkeley decades ago; I have recently learned that this public university now costs $30,000/Yr., not counting books etc., and living arrangements. How is that affordable to most students without incurring debt which will follow them for years? And, how many "administrators" are really needed? The Admin. Bldg. at Berkeley housed all of them; is it big enough now? Has the cost of "Administrators" reduced funds available for professors? How many low pay Adjunct Professors are now teaching classes previously taught by full professors? Something is wrong with this picture; I think it is the corporate banking system now in charge of finances. It should never have happened; and, it should be changed for a better way to fund higher education.
We need to stop acting like everybody can, or should, go to college. There are plenty of careers that pay well and don't require a 4-year degree. There are plenty of 4-year degrees that don't result in good careers. There is too much hype about elite schools, too little recognition of teaching and instruction compared to grants and research.
And, the ideas from the political left about making college free only exacerbate the situation. They make it seem like everybody MUST go to college, and they do nothing to address the faster-than-inflation price increases that have been a fact of life for 20+ years.
3
Learning is a good thing. College was never supposed to be vocational school, and treating it as such is outrageous. An educated population is a desirable end in itself, and trash-talking education does society irreparable harm.
4
@Roy
What do you suggest? How many young people can get into the trades dominated by unions, and family ties? How many young people have the finances or skill sets to start their own businesses? Perhaps our kids should put in apps for jobs at Starbucks or Target which at least provide benefits; they can then work at Dollar Stores while they wait for a better job. Manufacturing left under Cheney/Bush; that used to be where H.S. grads could get good paying jobs with benefits. The wealth disparity now is close to what it was in 1932; not a bright future for most young people in the job market now. However, if we remain a consumer based economy, lack of any disposable income will soon affect the whole economy: home sales, car sales, retail in general, and healthy communities.
2
When this topic arises, I wish there was more discussion involving community colleges and how these institutions counter all of the points raised in this column about this book. Additionally, the story of our community college students is far more compelling and reflective of what is really happening in higher education. If community colleges received just a fraction of the resources at elite schools and the students were supported financially (again at the fraction of what it costs to attend Yale) our nation would see a significant positive economic impact on the poor, working and middle class.
7
This is not really a new phenomenon. Where I chose to go to college 22 years ago (coming from a small town) played an out-sized role in the career path I've had, the people I've met and where I choose to live. I believe that if we knew in fact what a big decision selecting a college or other path would be in the ultimate arc of our lives, we each might be paralyzed and never decide on anything.
There will always be people who make it seem easy, those who struggle and succeed against the odds, and those who fail.
My point being, maybe college is cruel to the individual but so is every other aspect of life.
1
To people who believe that critical thinking is an exclusive product of a liberal arts school, I want to tell them it's a case of knows-not that knows-not.
Hard sciences have a monopoly on critical thinking. If the scientists develop a hankering about humanities, they can do it all by reading themselves. Now I would challenge all you humanities majors to teach yourselves probability (uncertainty, variability), optimization (sustainability), general physics (force, motion), plant diseases (horticulture), water management (hydraulics), and so on. Critical thinking in Shakespeare plays? How ungrateful!
1
We need plumbers, electricians, and our blue collar workers to keep our nation running. They are worthy professions for those who are so inclined. But, while acknowledging blue collar importance, we need to remember these are not the people who will lead us forward in scientific innovation, research, academics, or medicine. It is in all of our interests to have a well educated populace. By allowing the cost of higher education to become so exorbitant, we hurt ourselves as a nation. The U.S. has a history of education mistrust. I saw recently poll numbers indicating a majority of Republicans now have a negative view of college. Perhaps they should try living w/o the benefits and opportunities provided to us all by universities.
5
Families - children and parents - have been sold the college myth for too long. At the same time, we parents feel that college is a responsibility we have to our children and we'll borrow whatever is needed to pay for. Against our wishes, our son studied at a famous Boston music conservatory that wrongly positioned itself as preparing its students for a life in music. All was good the first two years; we earnerd enough money to pay tuition. But then the recession hit: tuition costs were increasing 8% a year (they had already increased 20% since our son was accepted); our advertising business went south; we had to pull on our retirement savings; our house went into foreclosure; and we had to borrow more money for him to finish up his education.
As we enter retirement, we have no savings, we have little income, we have $60,000 in tuition debt and our son has $20,000. Perhaps worst of all, our son is no longer pursuing a life in music because he cannot earn enough money to support himself.
I have one piece of important advice to parents. Only choose a college you can afford without taking out loans or dipping into retirement savings. Do not buy into the college myth that your child has to get into the most renowned college with high tuition fees. Sit back, breath and make the decision based on your finances and your age.
10
You can get a good education, have a good college experience, find a fufulling job and have a fufilling life-all without a 1st tier university! Imagine!! There are lots of great colleges out there. I know it's hard to believe for those of you in the competitive city bubble. Don't steer your kids to those institutes. It's easier when you are not living in those hyper competitive environments, I think. We are outside of that (sort of), but I would never let my "ordinary" children within a 100 miles of those places. And my college graduates are all doing well. Life is hard and competitive enough.
3
I never forgot a friend of mine that went to Yale mentioning that they put up nets around the local cliffs during finals time and this was 35 years ago. Such desperation.
4
@JeffB
Even more years ago glass walls were put up in Berkeley's Campanile to stop desperate, depressed students from jumping from the top.
Are the colleges cruel or are we. Recently in the New York Times articles appeared talking about the need for many people to work two jobs to meet ends meet. Another talked about the impact of dual income households. Is it any wonder that there are not enough jobs to go around as we have people not being payed a living wage working two jobs and two income households that want more of everything. Now we send people to college who are not necessarily our best and brightest in the hopes that it will solve the problem of being unemployable. Add to this the greed of the 2% and we have a big economic problem. The rich can't seem to have enough money, not that they need to spend it but like to have bragging rights. The rest of us went from one income families usually with one car, one TV and an affordable house to dual incomes with multiple cars, multiple wide screen televisions and have driven up housing prices into the stratosphere. We did this to ourselves and let corporate America both encourage and trap us.
We need jobs that pay at a minimum living wage of $15 to $20 an hour. CEO's can afford to spread the wealth as well as the investor class. We need the rich to be taxed fairly so that there is enough money for safety nets including universal health care and low cost college tuition. We need to return to less consumer consumption and have a stay at home parent, and yes this can be either parent. We are out of sync and sending everyone to college is not the answer.
3
@Steve I agree with much of your comment about redistributing economic opportunity but I don't see why each family must have a stay at home parent. The reality is that many families with two working parents rely on both incomes to live, not to buy multiple cars and televisions as you're suggesting. And even those with means may find value in careers beyond just finances (this is true for many of us out there). No need to revert back to 1950s social structure while we try to fix income inequality.
1
@Emily
I agree but therein lies the problem, why should a family need two incomes just to survive. There is much evidence that the two income household created the perfect storm for escalating home prices. Yes I understand that both parents may desire a career outside the home but if they have children the kids seem to suffer for it retreating into a world of IPhones and laptops. We have had in my opinion too many changes in a relatively short period of time. Kids are no longer allowed to be kids and parents parents. But yes we need to start with income redistribution.
1
The affordability of public higher education has been devalued by society. I am not sure how this happped. What happened to getting a credible degree in your preferred subject to join the middle class? That is no longer acceptable(?). There has been a long term roll-back of public funding support for higher education which now burdens students, wherever they are with debt before they can even earn anything. I tell people that I started Community college in California that cost $12/semester to register, then went to State University for $125/quarter & they don't believe me.
3
American schools do not inspire much “envy” within the developed world. There are hardly any French, German, British or Japanese students coming to the US for graduate school, and only a handful as undergraduates to any particular college, ivy or no ivy (some do a 1-year post-docs early in career, but they’re at that point no longer students). My experience as a faculty member is that the handful of foreign students from the developed world were here to enjoy travel in the US, California weather and the beach, and not because of any superior educational qualities of the college. There just isn’t any “envy” from any actually economically enviable, rich, society out there.
American colleges are popular for students from developing countries is a for the prestige and access they provide. There’s a wide range of quality and standards, which means it’s often easier for, say, an Indian or Chinese young person to get admitted and attend a college in America than an approved college in their home country. In the Middle East and Africa, where the ruling class is wedded by corporate, economic and military alliance with the US, there’s prestige in being a member of the home team. High educational standards are not generally part of the equation there.
Whether that is envy due to the actual quality of American education is highly debatable. Standards are often lowered in American colleges to attract high-paying students, just like a business should to increase demand for its products.
4
My son currently attends a selective small liberal arts college that is comparable to Middlebury. He worked quite hard in high school to ensure that he would have more choices for college and then used that near flawless record to gain early admission to the school where he thought he would get the most rigorous education and have the best fit. Small liberal arts colleges are really an American triumph and I wish that more students from disadvantaged backgrounds were directed to them because there is a lot of aid out there (that's why the sticker price is so high) and they offer a level of interaction with faculty that cannot be had at a larger state or private university. He sent me a picture of the stack of books he is reading for his very small English classes and I was green with envy: Beowulf and The Inferno, Portait of a Lady and The Wasteland. He is also taking the science pre-reqs to apply to medical school down the road, but for me he is getting what an undergraduate education should provide: an understanding of himself in relationship to the world of ideas. I hope we won't lose such opportunities in our rush to ensure that we get bang for our buck.
7
I have not read the book quoted and don't intend to do so. It is just trying to be inflammatory and play the "victim card" that is so popular today.
Not everyone at an Ivy is wildly advantaged and wealthy. Even those paying full tuition often have parents who have sacrificed for years to save to do this or at least certainly feel a big pinch when they write a check for $70,000.
These days, poor students, especially "under-represented minority" applicants, have a big advantage where admissions are concerned. At least 1/3 of the freshman class is made up of them or of "first generation" students. That other 2/3 is made up of athletes, highly recruited brilliant students, legacies, and foreign students...and a handful of just middle/upper middle class students who were lucky enough to have something that stood out beyond grades and test scores.
I question that those parents "bullied" their child about turing down Yale. I know a family who have gone to Princeton for generations- grandfather gave the school $9 million 40 years ago when that was a huge gift. She was also accepted at a very good 2nd tier school. Of course, her family, including cousins attending Princeton at the time, hoped she'd choose Princeton and encouraged her to do so, but "bullied"? No. She chose the other school and her parents respected her decision - 25 years later, she has given the school a dorm.
2
Once, a few years ago, I read in a well-known finance magazine, the CVs of top CEO earners. No surprise that many worked in the oil industry or the chemical industry. The surprise was that almost none had gone to IV League schools. The CEOs were from state universities. My experience is that graduates of IV
League schools carry an arrogance, stigma, or conceit that holds them back dealing with people. The little IVs and small regional liberal arts colleges graduate students of remarkable depth with analytical ability and education.
There is a difference between getting an education or going to college or university to get a job. One hopes that the student combines the two. Life is long, and
an "education" opens the mind and enriches both work and family life.
3
@Kathryn fyi it's "IVY"referring to the ivy that grows along the venerable stone walls of its buildings.
Our system, with its great institutions of learning, is warped by its almost uniquely capitalist, neoliberal character. The system was privatized beginning in the 70s, as even state schools shifted from public funding to financing through debt. Students no longer get an education, they buy one. And that has meant that it is reduced to career and job preparation.
The idea of a liberal education centered in the humanities vanishes. Schools offer facilities and services instead, and the administration flourishes. Anxious about uncertain success, students become mean-spiritedly focused on complaints linked to insults and identities, fueling our resentment-based politics.
The excellence of American colleges is the broad and open way at least members of the dominant professional class are able to learn and grow intellectually, personally, and morally, in a climate of opennes and curiosity, exposed to new ideas and thinking for themselves. High school does not teach that, as it is about acquiring society's dominant values, and non-professional work opportunities cannot provide it and are tied to enforcing them those values.
Education depends on the figure of the citizen, and so is dangerous. A good education opens onto life-long learning.
Without it, an authoritarian society falls back on religion alone, or a secular equivalent like New Age therapeutic spiritualities. How to live you life? Stop asking and buy and eat the answers. Or start thinking and...
3
As Mr. Bruni discusses "bragging rights" related to college attendance, let's not forget that so many young students (and their parents!!) walk around bedecked in college sweatshirts from Yale, Duke, MIT, etc.
I think this is a relatively new thing...perhaps in the past 10 years...where behavior of this sort has become common, and one more component adding pressure to college admissions and life.
People should stop it. If someone is lucky enough to attend a great university, terrific. Not everyone is, and I think we'd be a bit better of if there was more discretion in promoting elite colleges in this manner.
Of course it's not limited to where someone attends college, but to me it's bothersome that students...late teens and early twenties... let alone parents, many of whom graduated 40 years ago...participate in the sort of one-upmanship that is unfortunately so common lately.
3
@Peter Lobel I weep for the future if people can't handle seeing someone wearing a Harvard t-shirt.
1
I read your book, "Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be" a few years ago. It helped me to give some perspective on college admissions. You're absolutely right on that it does not matter on what college or university you attend. It's more on how you apply yourself in school and on who you know.
My son is currently a college sophomore in a West Coast school and my husband and I are currently paying full price. My son is considering transferring to a state school this fall to save money. My high school senior daughter, on the other hand, saw on what her older brother went through and is currently looking into state schools. They are aware that we are able to help them, but they have guilt when it comes to tuition bills. For that, I am grateful. (Tuition/ room and board has gone up 10 times than when I went to a private college in the late 1980's. Absolutely ridiculous!)
4
I went to St. John's College in Annapolis. It wasn't to get a job (this was back when the pressure to earn wasn't as intense) and it wasn't particularly to earn lots of money. It was for the education, and that, I got, sometimes in ways that I didn't expect. It wasn't cheap, even in the 70s, but I was fortunate that my middle class parents saved enough to pay for it.
People should still be able to do this. If we didn't imagine that being rich was the end all & be-all, perhaps we could.
5
Hello. When were schools; elementary, middle, high, Colleges & Universities not hard, filled with envy, filled with either bullies or elitists? Schools should not protect you from these difficulties; they should prepare you. Life is hard and filled with difficult people; that's a lesson most schools avoid.
3
College is the inflection point in a person's life between the America of people that bend over backward to raise and enrich a child, and the America of people that bend over backward to exploit and devour a worker.
As long as the tension between these identities rages, the "cruelty" of the inflection point will be inevitable.
5
This very economic reality, that a BA is seen as way to keep from falling down, rather than a step forward, bespeaks the failure of the neoliberal economic policy of Republicans and centrist Democrats (like Pelosi and Schumer and Hillary), and it is the very reason why the Progressives are going to become unstoppable over the next several election cycles.
1
So, I'm supposed to feel sorry for the poor at Princeton (or Yale or Middlebury or UPenn or even Texas where there is no shortage of really rich kids) because they are surrounded by rich kids?
Come on. Really?
5
Going to college is a transformative experience and somehow the NYT makes it sound like a nighmare! Shame on you, Mr. Bruni.
We need to be encouraging young people to apply and attend college. Not scaring them off with stories of doom and gloom.
The glass is half full and will remain so for all these bright young people!
2
Can you let us in on what the name of Shannen's book is?
1
I moved here in 1986...this is a mean country
have you been through the NYC high school process?
Have you dealt with senseless health insurance nonsense?
have you witnessed the inequality in schools, neighborhoods?
10
@LG You are 100% right. We revere and cherish judging others for having less. We want nothing more than to prove our superiority over those who “can’t afford”, are immigrants, have unplanned pregnancies, didn’t have a gun to shoot the bad guy or need insulin. Our leaders have exploited this perfectly to steal everything in sight. When China eats our lunch, climate change wallops us and Russia annexes us, will we even look up from kicking our fellow Americans? We are dim witted Puritans, and failure looks to be a real option.
1
Follow the money.
2
Actually, it's not the college you go to, its what you majors in. If someone majors in english or communications they're not going to get a high paying job when they leave school. To make college meaningful and worth the time students should be majoring in engineering, teaching, computer science, business/accounting, medical care/nursing, and pharmacy. Within the previous listed majors, student do take liberal arts courses to broaden their education. College should have a purpose even if one goes to an upper tier school. It's not a place to hangout for four years. It's not a right of passage. College is a place that prepares students for the future and gives them a platform to build a career.
4
@HRW It is very possible to build a career based on liberal arts. The future belongs to the creative, the collaborative, and not to those who do jobs that can be automated or off-shored.
3
Colleges market relentlessly. My son, who was an above-average high school student with spectacular SAT/achievement scores, must have received hundreds of solicitations. Many of these came with gifts, like the hipster sunglasses from the University of Chicago, and hats and shirts and thumb drives and every imaginable piece of swag.
Such commercialism! Fortunately both of our kids were grounded and chose colleges based on fit, rather than prestige. I was grateful and happy about that. I spent my freshman year at a college I chose based purely on prestige, and felt very much as KiKi does at Princeton. I was dirt poor, dissolving into mud in that ocean of affluence. I transferred.
6
Geez.....who are these people? Most people around the world struggle to get their kids to school with shoes on their feet. Can we stop whining and freaking out about not getting into an ivy league?
Going to an ivy league only matters if you want to be president or on the supreme court. For most other professions and positions you can be successful by doing great at a decent university and having good life skills.
4
College needs to be three years like in Europe. People need to do a year or work or service first so you are mature enough to benefit from the education. If you don't pass a basic, standard competency test, no government backed student loans. If you can't to the maths, writing and grammar you don't need to borrow money to live on campus and sit hung over in a lecture hall. It's lunacy to have remedial courses as the norm on campus. Unless you are a trust fund kid, decide if you love to learn and can afford to do it. If you are wobbly on either, learn to do something that pays, like code, and go to college when you can actually afford it. And separate professionalized athletics from a college education. The rest of the world thinks we are nuts by conflating the two and rightly so.
3
Like healthcare, education in America is a commodity. For profit colleges, only profitable because of Federal loans which are in effect subsidies, thrive on marketing hopes and dreams. The inflated cost of tuition goes hand in hand with the student loan industry, which has added to Wall Street’s bottom line. The bankruptcy code was amended to facilitate the securitization of pools of student loans that are now “bankruptcy remote.”
Some universities are real estate empires; others are sports franchises profiting on the backs of exploited athelete laborers referred to as student athletes. College sports support the cable TV industry, which supports the sports betting industry. Many universities sit on massive endowments enhanced by alumni sports fans while offering a pittance in financial aide to students but private sector compensation packages for their CEO’s, I mean Deans. Those CEOs (chief educational officers) are rated by their fund raising abilities.
Demand by the current middle and upper classes to remain economically dominant bids up tuition costs like condos in the Manhattan realty market. Tuition is based upon what the market will bear, entrapping those who lack available funding in the web of loan indebtedness.
America reached it’s pinnacle in the era when free City College enabled ordinary kids to become scholars, professionals and productive citizens. In my day I could attend Rutgers for $500 a semester.
Then the Board of Trustees discovered capitalism.
5
Seems like a pretty good argument for cancelling the debt and making higher education permanently free, much as that would make Bruni and Tough shudder.
2
Frank we live in a for profit society where people like money are transactions .It was the inevitable result of a winner take all concept of live. Now if you happen to fail it was your fault. This is America look at Opra.
1
College turned so cruel when the Boomer meritocrats took over America. The rich of the Greatest Generation, who were usually well aware of their sheer luck in being born into the "right" family, and thus the right education to set them up for life, were the ones who set up affirmative action and other programs to democratize higher education from the Sixties on. By contrast, the selfish Boomers tend to be like obnoxious self-made Victorians, disregarding their initial sheer luck in being born intelligent, as most are not, and thus boasting to themselves and the world about how they "made it on their own" through hard work, etc. That attitude ends up being very cruel in its disdain for all who haven't "made it on their own" through hard work, whatever their lack of natural endowments. For the meritocrats, it's just fine for the college competition to be so cut-throat now, since they can give their kids every unfair advantage over the great unwashed--includin buying them admission if necessary. The meritocrats don't really want an open society of free competition, as their setting up of quotas against Asian-Americans with better academic records than their own kids shows. They want, instead, a world in which the rich meritocrats can game the system at will to do their best to guarantee their own kids stay on top, whether they deserve to or not.
2
HS seniors - if you like academics and the rigors of working hard, it really doesn't matter if you go to an Ivy league or public university or community college. You will succeed. If you've never really liked school, don't like to read or write or do math, you probably need to re-think why you want to go to college (your probably don't and shouldn't).
PS Once in, don't expect to be coddled, don't expect everyone to like you or vice versa. This is the world, it's not fair, but it's real. Find your place and don't be taught you are a victim. Educators will try to make you a victim, or feel guilty if you are 'privileged,' but only the smart, hard working students are privileged.
5
Sounds like what medical school used to be...basically hazing and torturing doctors--but unfortunately it taught doctors obsessive/compulsive behavior is the norm.
Germany, France, Finland, etc. Free college to all who qualify. In Germany they accept students from any and all countries who qualify. Free college, help with living expenses etc. Why? they need more educated, skilled workers and expect a big % will stay. Its smart .
We need to get smart.
3
@RichardHead It's likely these countries you cite also have high taxes to afford the free college. We must remember that nothing in life is actually free; somewhere sometime someone always pays.
1
It is important to remember that the economics of college education we see today are not some kind of natural phenomenon. They are the result of a revolution in policy that took place thanks to Grover Norquist's "only suckers pay taxes" movement, and the neoliberal economic cult of the 1970-1980s. The understanding that education of individuals is a social good-like roads, airports and sanitation-that benefits the entire country was replaced with the winner take all ideology that we see today. The result has been 40+ years of wealth transfer to the most powerful groups and lack of infrastructure maintenance, let alone development, including among the once outstanding systems of public universities found in the American Midwest and Pacific coast. It is never mentioned that the cost of a semester's tuition at a Big 10 school, like U of Michigan or Wisconsin or Indiana, before that conservative revolution was about 1 week's wages for an industrial worker. (I know that for a fact because I worked as a summer replacement laborer in a steel mill while I was a university student.) In the great California university systems, tuition was even less. That was because the people of those states were willing to invest in our human capital, so that the states could have the economic benefits of a well educated work force. The right wing social and economic belief systems weres sold using the same rhetoric we hear from Trump today: fear, "common sense" anti-intellectualism and racism.
7
This is so dispiriting. I work at UCIrvine--not the Ivy League, but our students arrive with 4.2 grades, which means they never got a B. I went to Penn when it was OK to drink beer and play sports. We didn't have to be perfect; we could be college kids.
1
@Alison Don't forget to factor in we live in an era of grade inflation, advanced placement this, extra credit that. All these's 4.2s and A averages are the equivalent of the B's that students received in past generations without the extra bells & whistles.
2
We train thousands of students worldwide to join McKinsey, BCG, Bain et al. It is always surprising to me how many refuse to believe their degree has a value, unless they obtained the degree at an Ivy.
They typically start their training by apologizing for their degree. Our first piece of advice is to stop apologizing. That is why the degree is seen in a poor light. Because the alumni apologize for the degree.
Of the top 5 most capable clients we have ever had, here is the ranking:
Vietnamese Public University
US State University
Canadian University
Russian State University
Harvard Business School
Kris
www.firmsconsulting.com
1
I would imagine this book does not cover the effects of globalization and illegal immigration, both of which have put tremendous financial pressure on Americans from both the top and the bottom (exponentially more intense competition for both high and low paying jobs). But, hey, then again we all know that illegals (are we even allowed to still say that) are "more American" than the people who were born in this country, so we should probably just jack up tuition and taxes so they can go for free on our dime.
1
I have to wonder if the sources of this anxiety derive from PRIVATE elite colleges and universities. I teach in the largest public university in the country. It should be free; it isn't. Nonetheless, it afford much more access than Bruni alludes to and has been an engine of socioeconomic advancement up until recently. It's not the public university that is the problem. It's an economy, stupid, that has filtered resources upward to the wealthy and left the middle class in shambles and in debt. Yes, college students don't have the prospects open to them in the last few generations. But that's not because of university admissions and policies. It's because too many jobs in this "gig" economy don't make it possible for college grads to succeed or even to pay off debt. Students know this; hence their fears and legitimate anxiety about their futures. If we don't redistribute wealth and change the rules of this capitalist nightmare, colleges themselves--which should be FREE if public--can't turn it around, either.
5
College was always tough.
2
Most successful top ranked kids come from wealthy families and private school educations. This background is what produces the most academically competent people, regardless if its fair or not.
The public education system provided by the government (local, state, federal...etc.) has political objectives. This is because the government uses taxpayer money, the distribution of which relies on who gets elected. So you end up with a obnoxious overarching measure of "success" in public schools by how many black students they have. Nobody talks about the quality of the actual academic work, because that involves testing, and guess what? Blacks scores the lowest consistently. What do you do? Defer to the political commissar's orders.
OH no. Many of us felt like outsiders even at the college of our choice, which might not have been a great choice in the end, Ivy or Seven Sisters or not. The college of my choice was way too hard for me: I started out pre-med, ended up art history. The classes I had were not at all optimal. Calculus was taught as if for math majors, not MDs. I was expected to graduate in four years: I did, despite the death of my mother. For Jewish boys' moms I was a shicksa; for my WASP roommate NOCD (not our class deary). I was a midwestern in NYC and definitely not pretty enough. I was kicked out of classes for missing them as I was out of town, with a mother dying. And I'm leaving out -- love, sex, all that stuff. In those days one never complained nor explained. N
So far as the education …. the facts that I remember? Eventually, to be able to retire with some small income beyond IRAs I went to work for the BOE ( no picnic, but five years in secured a pension, an annuity, a significant up in soc. sec. from what adjunct teaching at the college level netted.)
Would I have listened to someone trying to help me at various points in my education, which frankly was a very lonely slog? I did try therapy -- not useful. In grad school the focus was on not jobs but getting the dissertation done -- reading mostly in Italian and German -- grasping 11th and 12th C imperial/papal history -- not covered in the coursework. You learn what you need to learn by yourself!
1
It's curious that all students addressed in this piece are women. Is the book similarly one-sided? ( I'll give the feminist retort here to save bandwidth. "Oh you poor babies")
1
No wonder college students today live in fear. They aren't stupid. They know what they are getting into. They know they are no longer seen as students, but instead, seen as ATM's, for the colleges.
Everything bad the author discusses here began when colleges switched their emphasis from providing education to students, to siphoning every last penny from the students.
When your perspective changes from that of an educator, to that of an accountant.....well....the end result is always the same. And it is never good, for the student.
1
Bruni doesn't tell readers whether Shannen succeeded in getting in one of the universities mentioned...or in any university, for that matter.
1
The colleges are partially at fault - some more than others. Our colleges reflect our society. It has, for example, become more competitive overall in the last than 30 years; college admissions reflect that. To those who don't find state college options attractive or affordable, look to your parents who voted for the state governments that made them that way. If college is a great experience for some students but not all, that's like most things. Life isn't perfect. For those who lose out to the competition in getting into the top schools, consider this; the winners are often those who worked harder and whose parents were willing to spend more money on education. A large segment of the US population now doesn't prioritize education the way other people do (for example, the middle class in China). Those hard to get college spots are going to the people who earned them and will pay for them. America it seems to me has chosen the type of society it wishes to have and our colleges mostly reflect those choices.
1
OK, here's the best plan I know:
1. Community College for 2 years. VERY LOW COST.
2. Make VERY GOOD GRADES in Community College.
3. The BEST in-state University for a BS, BA degree. MODERATE COST compared with other choices.
4. Make VERY GOOD GRADES in State U.
5. The BEST University you can gain admittance to, for a PHD, or other Professional Degree. HIGH COST, but tuition support is possible in some cases. BEST may also be in-state!
You will gain professional level connections in PhD program.
PS. This plan is not glamorous and requires a self-disciplined and mature student.
3
I assume Shannen is going to college for free, so this might be a moot point. But, she would be better off going to SUNY Albany or Binghamton. Low cost, academically excellent and great schools for kids who are "first in the family" to go to college. But these kids attach so much to these schools as if it makes a difference. Since its likely to be free, then yes, great. But if she has to borrow money it would be a mistake.
I hire people all the time, college matters not 1 bit. Grad school, yes. But UMASS is as good as Yale as far as I am concerned.
@Sean
Grad school should provide economic assistance- either scholarship, teaching assistantships, lab assistantships, tutors for undergrads, etc. And it should be close to free!! IMO. You will need that experience to get a job in the future.
Colleges are bastions of unchecked liberalism, filled with professors who have accomplished little outside of academia. How can an institutional force like college, run entirely by liberals, fail so miserably? How can it be so cruel? So expensive? Especially when it has no real competition?
Maybe, just maybe, liberalism does not make equality. Maybe liberalism is not economically efficient. Just maybe.
What else explains the problems with colleges? Nothing. Even with institutional racism (read: affirmative action) college does not produce educated minorities proportionate with their population in America. Why not? Because college is liberalism incarnate. A perfect experiment which demonstrates irrefutably liberalism does not work.
3
@EWG
I guess I'm a product of what you describe because I could not follow this fine web of circular logic.
@EWG Don't worry - there are right-wing colleges where you'll fit right in.
As a professor at a state university in New Jersey for more than 40 years, I have seen many students who are the first in their families to go to college have their futures transformed by the opportunities college offers. I have also seen state support for its former teachers colleges shrink dramatically, leaving students to shoulder increasing debt as college becomes harder to afford. We are a teaching institution where faculty also conduct important research that we connect back to our classrooms. We do not have the resources the heavily endowed prestigious universities have, yet we offer students a wide range of possibilities outside the classroom to explore their professional futures. The undervaluing of four-year state universities is truly a waste of a remarkable resource. It’s wonderful that Michael Bloomberg can give Johns Hopkins $1.6 billion. A tiny fraction of that would be transformative for a state university like ours, where we are providing an opportunity for transformation in the lives of 11,000 students. I wish parents would concern themselves less with the prestige of the brand and more with what a student’s actual experience will be.
10
@Diana Peck,
My daughter attended one of these NJ former teachers colleges and has a mountain of debt for tuition, room and board. When my friends attended in the 70s it was quite inexpensive. She is doing well but the debt does hamper her life choices.
2
The $1.6B gift of Michael Bloomberg to The Johns Hopkins University is transformative. It will allow the school to pursue need-blind admissions in near-perpetuity.
As an alumnus, I was thrilled. Hopkins is a meritocracy for the most part. Sure, there are some legacy admissions, but the coursework at this pre-eminent research institution is HARD.
But the best part was the fully tenured professors teaching introductory level courses. Sure, grad student TAs headed the small sections and labs, but the big guns were teaching the kids. It makes a difference.
I think your article Frank makes a great case for free public universities, and our responsibility to support public education enough that going to a state school isn't a second, third, or fourth option for new high school graduates. In California we have one or two of the highest rated public universities in the country, and they used to be free, or so low in tuition that anyone with the grades got in and could afford them.
2
Thankfully, I graduated SUNY in 2000. Quite a few of my classmates hold down 6 figure jobs and those don't, are well above the national average. When I was a freshman in the 90's, annual tuition was $8,000, 1/2 of which my parents covered, the other 1/2 gave me $16,000 in student loans. I just checked and the school I attended is now $23,320/yr, still the best bang for your buck, but you shouldn't have to be well off, or go into mountains of debt just to attain a higher education.
1
As colleges and universities went big business they lost their focus and ethic of purpose which once was the illumination of intellectual pursuit.
Instilling the thirst for knowledge and a mode of creative thinking in all fields was the driving force behind the selfless sharing in the acedemic world where we once sought personal relationships with our mentors.
Gone by the board in the relentless obsession with money and power.
In the 60's I paid next to nothing for a B.A. with honors amd later grad school and then law school.
My Fanny Mae debt load from law school was impossible to deal with so I put it out of my mind and several years later all these debts were forgiven by sensible legislation.
The dream of getting a degree and then employment is secure is over and no promises can be kept.
1
I enjoyed my college years - both undergraduate and graduate. Mostly I enjoy learning, especially words and languages. The need to know has been my prime mover since college. I can pinpoint how it started - with the creation of PBS, 1969. I would watch a series and, during it, would go to the library for more information. College, for me, was not about where I was to attend but, what I was going to learn. I am annoyed that education has become "where" so one may drop a name. One can really learn well most places. You must have a great, hungry "want". And it should continue through one's life.
4
My granddaughter did all the college application requirements herself. Consequently, she she got some nice letters of acceptance, but only $25,000 of assistance. That left about $40,000 for several family members to pay for private universities. Public universities offered no financial aid. This obscene because I only had to pay $ 64 a semester at UCLA in the early 1950s. We are paying about $23000 at a foreign college.
I received a BA from an elite private college years ago. Following the 2016 election, I received a newsletter from my alma mater that safe spaces were created for students unable to cope with the election results. I know this didn't happen on every college campus. For me, this was just another example that "brand name" elite college is simply not worth it.
1
I don't understand why college is sooo expensive. I graduated in 1964. I was told by someone that it's administrative bloat that drives the high cost. I've read that colleges have more administrative people than professors. Why is this? What do they do all day?
Maybe some of these high school students will want to look into attending a public university, where the professors are often better than those at private institutions. Reputation is not everything and these schools, which are very affordable, have some of the top researchers in the field. We have to get away from this antiquated notion that to be successful one must go to the most prestigious schools. The best programs are not normally at these prestigious schools; they are prestigious due to endowments.
2
When I first arrived at a large state university to begin graduate work, I worried that I was surrounded by people far smarter than I. 25 years later visiting my by-then alma mater, it occurred to me that had I then been starting as a new student I would worry that I was surrounded by people far richer financially than I. A novel suggestion: could educational institutions actually make educating their first priority? Let's not hold our breath.
1
As a professor at Western Kentucky University for 40+ years, I can say to all that we have students here who could succeed well at Harvard, MIT, or any other more prestigious university. They are here, well, because they are here. Perhaps their parents went here, their roots here are deep, family or other necessities keep them close to home, etc. To my personal knowledge, many of our best graduates go on to top graduate or professional schools, including Harvard, or to more prestigious southern schools (Vanderbilt, Duke, etc).
What we have, then, is not all weaker students, but students with a far greater range of abilities, ranging from these top ones to many who are minimally ready for college, if that.
But teaching these minimally prepared students is just as important a calling as working with the best.
6
I am a professor in the US whose college education took place elsewhere. My responses to this piece are myriad; I will focus on two:
1) The comment on putting energy into "actual teaching" is a bit much. Many of us are deeply committed to teaching, but the incentives for our positions penalize those who emphasize it. I have a PhD, 10 years postdoctoral training, and 5 years on faculty. And I still don't have a permanent job. If I want tenure (and I do) I have to get grants and publish papers; no amount of good teaching can compensate for failing to do so. Close friends who put teaching first *all* failed to get tenure because it interfered with research. We professors also have kids to support and bills to pay. Lobby your college if you want the terms of our employment to be different, but realize that our grant money pays for part of the university's operation...
2) I recently watched a college knock down a perfectly good dorm to build another dorm of the same size with nicer amenities. The old dorm was nicer and newer than my house. One under-acknowledged reason why US colleges cost more is that parents report choosing an institution because it had nicer amenities. I have seen these survey forms and the institutional response to them. Another part is that sports coaches earn more than surgeons. If you want colleges to educate, can I suggest choosing institutions based on things that contribute to education quality? Who cares the age of the treadmills in the gym?
7
One option is missing: the GI Bill. Granted, the program has changed many times since I availed myself of it in the 1970's and 1980's. However, I managed to wrangle 2 Master's Degrees and most of a PhD after serving for 3 years on active duty. Service to one's country followed by further study worked well for me, as well as for many of my friends who served with me.
We should be sad for Clara who was bullied by her parents not to go to Middlebury. Just be cause she's rich (or more to the point, her parents are) doesn't mean that losing a dream doesn't hurt. It like the person I knew who's marriage was ending and ending badly. They had money so there were plenty of snarky comments about recovering on the beach in the south of France. Funny, but all that money didn't keep her from being destroyed emotionally.
3
@sjs And for people who are not familiar with Middlebury, it is a top school for languages, perhaps THE top school, an all around good liberal arts school and not huge, plus in a nice part of the country (Vermont).
4
There is another, more important criterion than ivy league status when you are choosing a university. Look at the program's connections to employers. Do they have internships, fellowships, other means of introducing their students to employers in their field? I don't mean the university's placement office. I mean the department -- math, biology, business management, whatever. If they're not exposing and connecting their students to employers, look elsewhere.
I suppose we need to do a better job of telling younger students that brand name colleges are inflated institutions that, in the end, are no better than many other less sought after universities. This message must come from parents and teachers alike, who should be more focused on seeking a match for the student rather than a 'designer' name. That said, there are limited slots no matter where one applies & the criteria for admission are moving targets and... to some extent a lottery. There will always be more clout in attending the Ivies. So what? Life is a marathon, not a college sprint. There are numerous examples of Ivy League graduates who have not matched their ambitions outside the four walls of their education. And others who have attended state colleges who have soared in their fields. Either way, so what? Get educated, focus on contributing to your community and lead with your skills and your heart. Have a moral compass. That is about as fail proof for a full meaningful life as one can get. So.... parents & teachers... get to work on supporting students in this way. You will be providing each student with a precious gift.
5
We should really put the idea of skilled trades before students starting in the 11th grade or earlier. Not as glamorous as a suit wearing career but lifetime employment, great wages and no college debt. There will always be a need for electricians, plumbers, finish carpenters, auto mechanics and other skilled trades. Find something a robot cannot do. Save your sanity and wallet and work with your hands.
2
It's no college that is cruel. It is capitalism as we know it and the neo-liberal political thinking that drives it. College, if we focus on education and not job-training, can be part of the cure to the sickness that is late-stage capitalism.
One thing that Mr. Bruni's excellent article doesn't mention is the way that so many colleges push their students out the door. Because colleges are ranked in part on how many of their students graduate in four years, they try to make it difficult for students to take longer, although four years is an awfully short time for the large number of students who need to work as well as go to school. And heaven forbid that a student might not discover their preferred major until taking upper division classes, after which they might need to take some more prerequisites that will mean an extra term or two. You'd just better know what your future's going to be when you first enroll. Then get out of the way as fast as possible so someone else can start paying tuition and fees in your place. Colleges even force many students to take many and even most of their classes online so that more students can be stuffed into the same space, collecting more fees and more tuition and pretending that they're being efficient. Never mind that online students miss the many advantages that come to the students who can meet faculty and other students in person. But doing things this way produces "better" statistics for the school, and so produces higher salaries and benefits for the upper tier of administrators, whose interests become opposed to those of the students. The school may become a business, with students just an excuse for the university name.
1
Elite colleges seem to be more in the business of credentialing and creating a class than teaching–witness grade inflation, decreased knowledge of basic civics after four years, and less time studying per week in Richard Arum's "Academically Adrift."
If this is true, our meritocracy does indeed begin far before college years. Perhaps parents who are putting their kids through intense schooling beginning in early childhood are behaving as rational actors.
A good book to read on this is Michael Young's "The Rise of The Meritocracy".
It's hard to read this column not long after a hagiography of the virtuous Ivies who admit remarkable young people via circuitous paths. It just feels SO TYPICAL. First, we hear laments about the harm of hypercompetitive college admissions, the race/class-based arms race for top universities, and the failure of these universities to serve a diverse student population. Immediately after, wealthier, whiter parents take their kids to SAT prep and an essay coach. Fear of falling is at the heart of all of this because we seem very comfortable with the 'less fortunate' getting ground to dust as long as we ain't them.
1
There was a time a Student went to College came home and got a good job with a bright future. Today a Student leaves college with between 40-100 thousand in debt. Lands a job that pays about 40 thousand. Winds up living with their parents longer than they ever expected. When Colleges saw students able to receive Grants and Loans they just increased tuition 20-40% it happened to my daughter after her first year at College.
@frank monaco
Sorry, but you are wrong. - "Among the Class of 2018, 69% of college students took out student loans, and they graduated with an average debt of $29,800"
not low, but not $100K either. Less then the cost of a mid size, first ever car. $4500 per year pays it off in 10 years. You hear the horror stories of kids who have $100K+ in debt. But the mean is more like $10K to $20K in debt.
Dont get me wrong, this does not include the tons of money parents are paying as well, its just the "debt" load. College is still way too expensive.
There is an important distinction between going to college and getting an education. An education, particularly today, can be earned each day in what we do, what we read, how we interact, and where we seek to belong. A college degree is one way to accomplish these same objectives, but it's by no means the only way. It's been my experience that employers demanding a college degree instead of a knowledge based education related to the position they are seeking are leaving themselves open to a serious competitive blind spot. Sadly, articles like this one contribute to such blindness by repeating the dogma that perpetuates the myth of a singular path to education and success.
1
While a lot of posts here claim that it makes no difference whether you have a degree from an elite, brand-name institution or a less prestigious one, there is a blind spot in this thinking. Specifically, you can't account for opportunity lost. I graduated from a small, undistinguished liberal arts college, which didn't garner any attention on my resume. A master's degree from the University of Chicago did. People who interviewed me for jobs took note and assumed I was smart. Yes, people said this. One employer, who did end up hiring me, said the Chicago degree was the reason he hired me over some others he had interviewed. Of course the other interviewees never learned this. It's absurd to make assumptions like this merely based on where someone went to school but it's how the real world unfortunately works.
5
It is sad but having a "ticket" on your resume opens more doors
2
Yes, college primarily:
-"leads to higher earnings and greater economic security" and
-it can be "a fun rite of passage"---but it rarely is a place of learning in a community of students and teachers, producing permanently curious minds, intellectual discomfort and the search for fragments of answers by the questions raised in the old liberal arts curriculum
That is the loss and tragedy in what happened to college
3
OK, I teach at a state flagship in Texas so I may be biased, but I still wonder why it took till the last paragraph to mention one. I recall maybe two decades back a study of students who were admitted to Princeton but chose to go to state universities instead. They did just as well in the long run; it was the skills and habits that got them admitted to Princeton that were crucial. OK, state flagship costs are high enough, but Texas flagships are working on that too.
3
"At its best, it remains a ladder to higher earnings, greater economic security and dreams fulfilled."
Really? I always thought education at its best had something to do with personal intellectual growth -- an item which is remarkably absent from Mr. Bruni's "ladder."
There are millions of people in the U.S. who somehow, remarkably, are managing to do quite well without degrees from "Top 100" (much less "Top 10") colleges and universities. It seems to me the real problem is unwarranted angst ("I'm destined for failure if I don't get into this school") manufactured by adults who somehow are profiting from it (e.g., SAT prep companies and overpriced colleges).
Young people need a better message than what they apparently are getting.
2
It seems to me that Frank Bruni and the book he reviews is making higher education into the black sheep. As an educator, I am dissapointed in this fast-food type of reporting that looks to feed readers with cheap outrage and does little to offer any critical thought on higher education in the USA. He can start by investigating how a slow and steady trend of cutting funding (taxes) from state and federal governments has greatly impacted public higher education. If you take public out of public education you have private school level tuition and an emphasis of seeing students like clients. Thus, more state of the art gyms, more adjunct instructors, more administrators that are looking to jump ship to an even better job, more emphasis in attracting students from wealthy families, and less emphasis on high quality instruction that fosters intellectual growth and leads students to a clear career path. I'm tired of seeing public servants making the news only to be blamed for something they have very little control over. I work very hard to educate students and get very little adulation for it. I don't need adulation and I welcome fair criticism. I want to be better at my job. But, this pessimistic view of higher ed is below the belt. Lastly, Bruni seems to be focusing on top tier schools as cruel and anything below them is a wasteland with little opportunities. In my opinion, Bruni is as cruel in his evaluation of higher education as he claims top schools are of their students.
4
So many issues brought up in this well written article. I'll focus on one: The impact of the college process as a whole on young students' mental health. As an old idealist, it pains me that students don't enter college with a sense of freedom and the joy of learning after years of basics. The joy of learning, of considering, of thought, in an environment of relative peace.
If we collectively as a country accept the above as part of an optimal learning environment...a principle... how can we and what can we do to nudge educational instititions to move toward the same moreso than current?
My comment goal is not to provide answers... we all have them... what I can say is that as an alumni of various institutions I know I can at least send a letter or make a phone call to a dean, a University President, or other contacts to generate consideration of ideas at that level. Perhaps others will consider this if not being done already.
2
When my parents were in college (in the 70s) a student could earn tuition working a minimum-wage job for the summer. That's not even close to possible now.
I've known folks my age (i.e., in their 30s and 40s) who did college the debt-free way: community college for 4 years, university for 4 years, taking only 1 or 2 classes a semester because that's all the time or money they could afford.
But there is a real opportunity cost that comes from delaying the start of your career until your late 20s (or later). A whole generation will have lower lifetime earning potential, will delay home-buying a children-having (or forgo them entirely), and what will happen when retirement age comes around?
1
There it is, in the last paragraph of the piece. "A few professors" have actually gone back and put their energy into teaching. Isn't teaching their primary responsibility? Most professors at high prestige colleges don't think so. It is only publication and grants that guarantee advancement (and survival). That is where the energy goes. Making the effort to teach well robs one of the time to do the real work. And therein lies the scandal of higher education. Undergraduates pay through the nose, but rarely see the illustrious professors who lend luster to their institution.
Education regulators need to step in and help public college funding to make it more competitive. I was one of those "poor" children that graduated from low cost CUNY system without loans or debt. But many of the labs and equipment I used were really in need of repair or modernized to today's technologies. This really limited a lot of the companies from coming in to recruit from my campus.
Most of these top tier private colleges receive multi-millions of dollars in donations already to keep their labs up to date. Why private colleges get away with charging $30k+ tuition on top of that to keep smart but poor students out is fascinating. For those that did get in to top, congratulations, but hope you weren't trapped with $100k worth of debt without a decent paying job.
2
I, a Southerner since 9th grade high school, went to a Seven Sisters College, and I was lucky enough to know it was a perfect fit when I visited during my Junior year of high school. Being a voracious reader and writer, creatively-bent, and artistic, and having spent my childhood in Southeast Asia and Africa, I needed a somewhat nerdy, academically difficult and focused, internationally-embracing and diverse college with a gorgeous campus. The student who let us on the tour, was an intensely smart young woman from India, and she seemed completely at ease. I applied Early Decision and got in.
It was a perfect fit. I didn't feel too rich or too poor; too diverse or too blended in. Sometimes, as an adult living in Atlanta, I envy those who went to UGA or another huge Southern university, but only around football season because boy, do they seemed bonded for life to their college friends!
Other than that, getting my BA in French Literature, and a Minor in Art History, taught me how to think on my feet, find and filter the right information, and most importantly, how to write. If you can write, you'll be successful in a lot of careers. Those who should write, but can't or who are afraid of it, will give you so many opportunities to use those skills to become a respected and valued member of any team. Trust me!
4
My daughter is enrolled at a top 14 law school. (She told me that people apparently speak of the top 14 schools, not the top 10.) Her class is full of students from elite private colleges and universities, but also includes quite a few students from private colleges that are not highly regarded. The overwhelming majority of students who graduated from public institutions graduated from public Ivies.
Why is this? The school offers merit scholarships. Is it because the top 1% income distribution is vastly over-represented in law schools, or is it because the law school is not accepting students who graduate from places like CUNY?
2
The intense focus on expensive elite colleges is the mistake. There are many great public universities providing a world-class education. These universities usually have reduced tuition for in-state residents and generous financial aid.
For instance, the University of Illinois provides financial aid to cover all tuition for anyone whose family earns less than about $60K. In addition, Georgia provides a HOPE scholarship paying 90% of tuition at any public university in that state's system for residents graduating from high school with a 3.0 grade point average.
3
I'm retooling for a new career by going to City College of San Francisco which charges NO TUITION for SF residents. (Out of town students pay about $126 per class, which is still quite affordable.)
Books and a small administrative fee have totaled $159 for four classes this semester.
A similar program at Berkeley Extension would have cost $5,000 for not much better quality.
My teachers and fellow students are broadly diverse and dedicated. It feels like a civic miracle every time I go to class. And shouldn't education feel that way?
After reading this article, I feel not only smart, but extremely lucky.
Thank you San Francisco! You could teach the rest of the country a thing or two.
3
"few professors in particular have decided to go back to the beginning, more or less, and pour extra energy into actual teaching." This misses the point. Its not that few Professors make this choice, or that few care about teaching, its that there are FEWER FULL-TIME PROFESSORS period. Whose fault is that? Its that universities don't care about hiring full-time teachers when they can rely on cheap, if well-educated adjunct instructors. But this disadvantages both adjuct teaches and students, because poverty-striken instructions don't have the time to mentor poverty-striken students. Today, Universities are run like hedge funds rather than educational institutions-- thats cruel to professors and students alike.
6
I must admit I get weary of reading about the problems of people who can't get into the ivy league schools. Give me a break. There are so many ways to get a good college education without being the smartest or the richest.
2
As the world becomes more automated, the education system as a whole needs to adapt to best serve the next generation. A good start is that online classes from top schools bring free samples of higher education to everyone. All too often there seems to be a focus on "getting in" rather than "getting on" with higher education. One of the big advantages I am grateful for is that I didn't get into graduate school until I was in my late 20's. I had a chance to work and experience the real world for a few years before making a decision about what really was interesting to me. Once I was able to make deep connections, the world suddenly changed and I no longer cared about grades, what other people thought I should be doing, and focused on what I thought the best version of me would look like.
I was lucky enough to attend Stanford graduate school but honestly, there are no practical reasons why anyone couldn't learn what I learned by taking online courses and working though books written by world class professors. If there was a system that allowed self motivated students to become certified in a universally recognized way, along the lines of passing "the bar," that might help disadvantaged students get the recognition they deserve.
1
The over-the-top concern about getting into a top college that sweeps many high school students is similar in origin to the concern about having the trendiest clothing or smartphones among junior high students.
In each case it is not society that is at fault; instead these are self-imposed anxieties that are akin to mass hysteria.
The one thing that might easily be done differently is to reduce the burden in time and money of applying to colleges, which can be prohibitive when a student applies to more than two or three.
But there are many, many fine colleges to apply to. If a student can apply to four or five of them with a range of admissions criteria — including a "safe school" — they will have an excellent chance of attending one of the best places that they qualify for.
There is a serious misapprehension that fuels their worries: the idea that there is only one "best" place to go to. Instead, almost every decent college will have things to offer that aren't available at other places. (Sometimes there's a great advantage to being a big fish in a small pond.)
4
Life is an improvisation not a rehearsal. Digital addiction, helicopter parenting and a rotten pop culture has turned young people into quivering, indecisive jellyfish. After high school I attended De Anza Jr. college in California because (gasp!) I really had no life plan. Oh yeah, among the students was this hippie looking dude named Steve Wozniak. At that point in our lives we were merely winging it - improvising a way forward. I got bored, dropped out and was drafted into the Army during Viet Nam. I then improvised a way into the Army showband in Chicago without signing up for the required four year commitment. I then, with no real plan in mind, attended San Jose State as a music major on the GI Bill (hardly cost anything) and found myself studying composition with the 20th century master, Lou Harrison. I improvised a way into a progressive rock band and had a minor radio hit in the SF Bay area while still a student. Recorded an album of my own music with my college pals and got a couple of record contracts. Now, I'm an old guy teaching jazz at a pricey private school in Colorado, relaxing on the deck of my Log Home with a view of Pikes Peak having to calm down terrified twenty year olds who think they are failures for not having their entire life mapped out. I never had a plan. The message for my students is be sharp, flexible and open to any darn possibility. The only way to a righteous life is improvisation. That's why Jazz in truly America's Art music.
8
Lovely, but this not the 60s anymore.
I am so tired of people who assume that their unique life trajectory is so exemplary that it must be good for everyone.
Only a tiny fraction of today’s college students will graduate debt free. Housing is at least an order of magnitude more expensive than it was in the 60s, and in major metro areas probably two orders more expensive. Drifting about and hoping to score a hit record to pay the bills strikes me as the height of folly.
4
@Max: Ya missed the point Max. If I hadn't found success in the music biz I would have improvised a different path for my life. Oh yeah, bought my first house in the 70's with Jimmy Carter's interest rates at 17 percent on my GI Bill, freelance gigs and wife's burger flipping salary. Don't talk to me about housing prices, stop whining on the sidelines and join the parade. Get moving.
1
@DL
I'm the burger-flipping wife. The reason we're in Colorado is because that first house we bought was tiny and in a bad neighborhood in San Jose. When we were ready to move seven years later, the only affordable places we were willing to live in would have required really long commutes. So we improvised and moved.
1
The term "privilege hoarding" has recently appeared in the national discourse. Nothing betters exemplifies hoarded privilege better than the fact the number of elite schools has remained static for decades and the size of the incoming freshman class there has scarcely increased.
Meanwhile, the number of high school seniors has increased greatly as a result of population growth. Also, the opportunities for high school graduates to earn a living wage have shrunk significantly due to de-industrialization and automation. These factors are driving the increase in college applications that has caused acceptance rates at elite colleges to plunge into the single digits.
The US clearly needs more elite colleges. Otherwise, the upper and upper middle classes who essentially own elite college education will continue to game the system, thereby excluding less privileged but equally deserving students from the many opportunities graduates of elite universities enjoy.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if some of our tech billionaires could be persuaded to put aside their schoolboy fascination with space travel in favor of being the Jane and Leland Stanfords of the 21st century?
4
They are all for profit institutions at this point. The primary goal of higher learning has shifted from educating American youth to filling the coffers. Education is still on the list, but it's probably about 3rd behind overall profits/bottom line and institutional fund raising. And of course with Division I schools, sports often pushes education to 4th on the list.
5
The writer is reinforcing the "victim" construct which is unfortunately a fairly broadly disseminated cultural paradigm across higher education. It rests on a highly dysfunctional and misguided administrative routine--which is self-reinforcing and thereby a conflict of administrative interest--that re-interprets diversity as a social hierarchy subordination, and one that must be appealed to third parties for adjudication. The word "cruel" is merely consistent with the larger set of victim psychology language and symbolism including "trigger warnings, safe space" and other concessions to a coddling university society. Universities will produce uneven outcomes because skill, talent, intelligence and motivation are uneven. That normal distribution cannot be re-engineered. We need more and better colleges, with more and stronger leadership.
1
The column, and majority of the posts I read, all seem to accept the premise that colleges/universities (better, elite ones!) are the pathways to better jobs, more secure employment, higher life-time earnings...
That may be true.
But, those were not the reasons I was encouraged to attend university . Nor were they my primary expectations ... I wanted to learn. I had no professional expectations, no jobs in mind, but I knew that I wanted to know more. More math, more about language, more about science ...
Yes, I was a legacy student at an Ivy, yes I had a 1500 SAT (well, 1496), but I had grown up excited about learning, growing, knowing rather than working in a particular field. In the '60's the only place to do that after high school was university ... so I went, happily, thirstily, expectantly. Yeah, the route took some 320 credits for my BA, and another number of years to complete the rest, a final PhD in philosophy and linguistics, and along the way I became a chef, worked in restaurants, worked in city crews with a jack-hammer, spent some time as an adjunct prof and, perhaps strangely, spent most of my life s an Episcopal priest.
But the learning hasn't stopped, my curiosity hasn't diminished, the intrigue and involvement with life is as strong as ever. Perhaps if our children learned that, if our institutions supported and celebrated that ...
5
My fourth point: Yes, to the ridiculous level of bragging rights, branding, and the egotism accompanying all that in the college application and admissions frenzy. My mission in the role I play is to introduce students to equally wonderful colleges without the status symbols but with rock-solid opportunity and proven career outcomes, backed up by data. Too many parents are uneducated in this regard, and feed that artificial, desperate hunger for "recognition" by adding to this propaganda. They do this by mindlessly accepting what they hear in the local rumor mills and then wring their hands over whether their less than spectacular child will "miss out" by not applying to (or not being accepted by) the 10 most popular colleges in the land. Unnecessary and wasteful. Full disclosure: my children graduated from top-10 schools; one went from popular Ivy #1 as undergrad to popular Ivy #2 as grad. She happened to belong there and she has thrived, but those situations do not work for everyone. So this is not Ivy-bashing.
1
Rather than keep pounding on these stories about people trying to get into the most elite schools, how about stories about people going to the state colleges that accept most high school graduates? That is where the vast majority of people go to college. Do they have the same problems? Is the education any different (not likely for bachelors level degrees!)? What about those going to community colleges and transferring to 4-year schools?
Most of those going to "elite" schools are doing so for something other than education - it just can't be that much different for a basic college degree - they are doing it for social reasons - perceived prestige, social contacts for the later job hunt, etc. In other words, if your goal is to be in the most prestigious law firms, be an SC justice, etc, then Yale is where you want to go. Otherwise, it hardly makes any difference at all.
6
Two things...
Many of the students who "graduate" from high school, do so without having learned much. These students will never be ready for college. If we want more people gaining college degrees, we have to improve our preparatory programs, including all parents reading to their children...every day, from birth.
Attending college is about so much more than gaining a profession. It is a gateway to experiencing a wider world, intellectually, personally, and emotionally. It is also a great avenue for character building.
4
My parents didn't graduate from high school, so I had to navigate the system myself. I applied to big name schools, got into all of them, but couldn't afford them. I went to our county community college, paid with NYS TAP funds, a couple of small scholarships and my part-time job earnings. After two years, I commuted four hours a day by train to a NYC university because I continued to work part-time and couldn't afford to live off-campus, the only housing for transfer students. Eventually I worked at a college that initially was the choice of blue collar kids but became more selective, attracting a different demographic. In addition to my administrative role, I was an adjunct professor and mentor to hundreds of students over 20+ years, like the African-American male with 8 siblings who dropped out his last year because he couldn't afford it, but I begged financial aid to help him out. He is now a senior Army officer. There are many other success stories in a variety of fields. There were also others who only wanted to party, including one young man from a tony CT town whose parents were embarrassed he didn't go to Harvard, Princeton or Yale like the neighbor kids. I was asked to mentor him and asked him what his interests were. He told me, "football and girls." Sorry, couldn't help him with either one.
I learned three things: Higher ed needs a make-over. You don't need to go to an Ivy. We all have a mentor role to play, but some students are more receptive than others.
4
If people focused more on getting a great education and less on the prestige delivered by a particular highly-selective school, they'd be a lot better off - psychologically, emotionally, and professionally.
College doesn't end with admission. In fact, it's only the beginning. Go someplace, anyplace, and then actually become a scholar. You'll be fine.
11
My third point: There are not enough co-op colleges in this country. I understand that Canada has far more. Co-ops are wonderful transitions between college and career and make a person's future so much less scary, practically and psychologically.
5
I have a lot of things to say here, because education is my field, and I am also a college admissions counselor. Let's start with this:"KiKi nets the scholarships and financial aid she needs for Princeton. But she finds herself in such a tiny minority of poor students there that she feels culturally adrift...despite the most elite schools’ pledges and boasts about diversifying their campuses, they’re still theaters of extraordinary affluence, with screening practices that keep them that way."
It's actually more than that. It's also that social screening among students of privilege, particularly in the East Coast, remains the legacy, even when unconscious. Having visited Princeton a few times and attended a graduation and a residential college reception, the operative word is separatism -- something that I could see surprised some underrepresented newcomers but was expected by other minorities, and to which they were reconciled.
Next, the point about the Live and Let Die mentality of many faculty members at elite colleges: I agree that it's irresponsible of college administrations to abandon students who are not already equipped, by previous schooling, to meet that additional challenge. If you're not interested in supporting underprivileged students entering a realm of all-around excellence for the first time in their lives, then don't admit them already. It is, I agree, a form of cruelty. Among that group, those who cope best have come from boarding schools.
10
@calleefornia Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor graduated from a parochial high school before entering Princeton. Her college advisor told her she wasn't writing in complete sentences. She also realized she was unfamiliar with much of general background of others. So she hunkered down and read the books other students would have read starting with children's books.
In the 1960s, the hs guidance councilor advised my parents not to let me apply to private colleges 'cause though I would get a scholarship, I wouldn't be able to keep up socially. I went to one of the best NY state universities. I never met rich kids with connections, but I've done more than fine without them.
3
I work at a mid-sized company in Texas. One evening at happy hour with co-workers I was chatting up one of our lawyers and we were talking about where we went to school. I went to the University of Houston, he went to Princeton. I told him I thought it was impressive that he went to an Ivy League school, but he just shrugged his shoulders and commented that we both wound up working at the same place.
9
Frank, you can't talk about the failures of universities without including their horrific employment practices of adjunct faculty. Adjunct faculty have no benefits, no job security, and make such little money they qualify for food stamps.
They make up over half of the teaching faculty at universities. Many don't even have offices or cubicles, and are not provided with equipment such as computers and phones.
So if you want college instructors who can really help students, start demanding that universities, especially the ones who pay no taxes, start paying faculty like the professionals they are.
6
45 years ago I attended a private college because it was the only one my parents would let me go to. I ended up heavily in debt too. There were 10 brothers and sisters after me. I could not expect them to help me out and then help the other 10.
The real cruelty came from the girls whose parents' paid for their educations 100%. They were the meanest girls I had ever met. Yes I made friends there, poor kids like me. But those rich kids were the cruel ones. Some things never change.
4
"Today, for many young Americans, a B.A. is simply an insurance policy against moving down." And with this mentality forced upon them, the old ideal of college education as a place to gain broad knowledge and wisdom is out the door. Yes things are really twisted now.
8
OK, OK, I'll admit it. We paid full tuition for our daughter to attend University of Chicago (while also paying for our son at American). We could afford it. And every time I read one of these articles, I felt guilty because we could provide top educations for our children. But now I think of it this way. That $65,000 per year we paid for our daughter also subsidized a low-income student who was going on a scholarship. So the next time you scoff at well off parents who can pay the freight, remember where some of that money is going. I feel like I put more than my two through college. And that's OK.
12
This is what happens when a society deflates its middle class and lets all the financial air rise to the upper levels.
The homeowners in the neighborhood I grew up in were a mix of small business owners, mid-level execs at big companies, factory workers, teachers, service industry workers and government employees (postal worker; city clerks).
Regardless of whether you went to the local city college, a state university, a community college, got a Union job, learned a trade or worked your way up from bagging groceries to managing the store, you had a real shot at being a middle-class homeowner.
If you wanted something more, fine. Go to a better school, go to med school, law school, earn an advanced degree.
That all changed. Government became the enemy (yet we're a government by and of the people), Unions were bad (yet that Union guy was my neighbor) and "markets," not people, were wise. In 1981, my dad (auto worker, postman and later small-business owner) said: Get out of the industrial Midwest, in 20 years it will be a shell. All the money is moving form the middle to the investor class, from the little guy to the big shots."
It does not have to be that way. There are plenty of jobs that should be middle-class, but aren't: home healthcare work is just one example. One job should be enough.
We can pull all that oxygen back into our middle class if we see our kinship with all workers, and fight for them as hard as we fight to get our kids into an elite college.
9
"To spur innovation, compete globally and nurture prosperity... we need more, better college graduates."
Defined how? By how much they earn once they graduate, or by which high-tech or Wall Street firm hires them? What's missing from these regular diatribes about the failure of higher education is any kind of rational assessment of what constitutes a "better college graduate".
To be sure, this isn't even on the radar of most universities, but if we're going to take control of the situation then it's up to us, not Harvard, Yale or Princeton, to make the determination of what a successful college career looks like.
How about starting by explaining the difference between going to college to get the tools for getting a job, and going to college to get, say... an education. I'll wager the rest of my bank account, small that is, that not 1 in 100 college students have the faintest notion what I just said means, and even fewer would know how or where to start the effort of simply becoming more educated.
What we promote is the empty vessel notion of higher education: You come to us knowing nothing, prepared for nothing, as helpless as the day you were born. We take the empty vessel that is you and, for a substantial price, we fill you up with "knowledge", right to the very brim. When we're done, you go out into the world and get a great job making a lot of money, so you can pay us back.
And we wonder why this fails.
7
This column is right on. I taught at the college level for more than twenty years. The last couple of years I had many more stressed out students, some of whom had to take their exams at the disability center because they were so anxious they became paralyzed. The GPA required for admission has risen from about 3.5 ten years ago to 4.1 today. If you don't take AP classes, you're pretty much doomed.
Yet, just a couple of miles away is a terrific community college, where students can get a great education while they spend two years deciding what it is they want to do with their lives. And it's virtually free. Too many kids, and parents denigrate community colleges. They want their kids at universities. Well, they can transfer. And, the degree they earn will still have the university' name on it; and the students will experience much less stress.
8
Neither of my parents graduated from college, but I had a couple of teachers who inspired me, and I did my best. I am the graduate of a small liberal arts college, a big NYC university, and a great state university. I loved learning, and it enriched the quality of my life, and I added to the economy of a great and good nation. Thank goodness, I was not born in Europe where my ancestors came from and my options would be limited by my birth. America remains a dream still for immigrants like me and many others. we need to acknowledge the need for immigrants who come to make make a world of difference for themselves, and the country that receive them.
7
It would have been interesting to learn if the reviewed book
had spent any time with students who thought (or found) a two year community college to be an attractive bridge from
high school to either skilled employment or two or more
years at a university.
Unfortunately, most of the reporting here suggests this book
compiles many anecdotes about how our class based cleavages manifest in the effort to get into an elite college or university. This is hardly where the main problem lies, though it's great for generating many a story about the stresses
that some high achieving high school students must endure
In addition, rather than concentrate solely upon the scandals of overly expensive for profit "colleges" with all their dubious features, it would make sense to include, as a worthwhile complement, the role of community colleges that are much
less expensive.
What are the enrollment trends in community colleges nationally? Are they suffering from public funding cuts as much as state universities or colleges?
At one point the Obama administration did promote such
local institutions as the natural extension of high school
for those who were not college ready or oriented. What has
come of that under devos' reign of arrogant and incessant error?
3
There is a reasonable probability that we have dumbed-down college a bit too much. Universities and colleges had grown quickly as baby boomers had kids. The idea that a college degree was needed being embedded in everyone’s brain. As enrollments grew, revenue was needed to keep schools financially viable. With increased costs, the schools were less likely to want let student flunk-out students keeping the revenue flowing in. Remedial programs were added. Grades inflation has taken hold---but people don’t spontaneously get smarter over just a few decades.
When I was in school back in the 70s taking 18 credits to start, freshman classes were tough and tended to weed out students that were not able to make the grade. (and came close to weeding out me.) Getting a degree should not be easy.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/07/has-college-gotten-easier/594550/
Of course, another big issue is whether our education system is too oriented to getting a college degree. There are lots of good jobs that require people to get their hands dirty—but attitudes have shifted away from such.
5
College has always been cruel. Sixty years ago when I started, it was them against me. Twenty years later, when I finished it was the same, endless nightmares about exams that weeded out the strugglers. It was brutal. Well, I got the degree and, in fact, society seems to think I am a better person for it. For subjecting myself to all that battering? Wouldn't a little supportive on the job training have been more productive?
1
Married couple in early 30s, both with masters degrees, combined household income of $140k. Combined school debt of $250k. Living in an area where starter houses are $350k, so $600k debt after a house. Have to stay here because jobs are in cities, but houses in cities are expensive.
We'll be fine in about 20 years because we're not going to have children (our 50s should be great!).
Hey Boomer parents, this is why you're not getting grandkids.
11
$140,000 combined income both with a Masters Degree? That seems too low, at least for my NYC standards.
@MarieCondo
It probably *is* too low, but that’s just how it is for the vast majority of educated people under the age of 50. We get paid less to do more work.
5
It's likely you'll have a way happier marriage too!
1
First and foremost, people generally don't understand the culture and climate of academia which has barely changed in the last 50+ years. At top universities, the emphasis is on research, not teaching, though the very best have professors who excel at both. PTR (promotion, tenure, reappointment) is based almost solely on research output and politics rather than teaching quality. Often non-tenure-track (NTT) faculty are better instructors than tenured at most schools except but the top (and bottom). PhD students generally are the worst instructors, with no experience, little supervision, and no incentive to teach well.
Second, There are tiers of schools, whether we like it or not. Top-tier (Ivies and near-Ivies like Stanford, MIT, Georgetown, Duke, Hopkins), named private (Tufts, CMU, NYU, Fordham, Emory), elite liberal arts (Williams, the Seven Sisters, Wesleyan, Oberlin), top public R1 universities (U of CA, U of IL, SUNY, UConn, U of T, UVA, U of Mich, UNC), tier 2 public universities, other ranked schools, other public non-research universities, non-ranked schools, community colleges, online not-for-profits, and dead last, for-profits (AVOID).
Lastly, the goal is to build skills for a lifetime, not for a particular job. No one expects an 18-year-old to plan out their entire career. The key challenges are ensuring opportunities by doing well in high school, navigating an enormous selection and range, and making an affordable choice. Good enough is the target.
4
This column gives a false impression of both the college admission process and the problems many incoming students face. The vast majority of applicants to college is not like Shannen who is extremely worried about whether she will be admitted to an Ivy League school since almost all qualified high school students do not apply to highly prestigious private colleges (e.g,. the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, etc.); instead they seek admission to state universities, state colleges, junior colleges and other public institutions, and almost all of these schools provide excellent educational opportunities at more or less reasonable costs. Indeed Shannen might be better advised to apply to UC Berkeley, a public college that in many areas rivals the most prestigious private colleges.
6
College has become grotesquely expensive, but even at more affordable levels, the question that needs to be asked is, is it even worth the cost?
As economies continue to change rapidly, what percentage of all the kids that go to college because we told them it was a ticket to the middle class, and they need "21st century skills", actually learn 21st century skills, but more importantly, GET 21st century jobs. As the article alludes to, a BA is now merely an insurance policy against moving down.
I'm somewhere on the left side of the Democratic Party, and are as romanced as any liberal by the idea of "liberal education", but I think we are getting this wrong. We need to ask what students are actually learning at college - if anything - can they learn it in two or three years as opposed to four? Does college really make sense for everyone? If not for the now outrageously bloated signalling responsibility it carry's in American life, we wouldn't tell every student that they should go to college. We wouldn't.
If you believe at all in the signalling theory, that half or more of the value of a degree is signalling to the labor market that you are smart enough, and will work hard, than it is clearly not worth it - even at lower costs. We need to stick a few pins in the higher education bubble and let the air out.
2
@Brandon
But until there are valid alternatives, no air will come out. Assuming you are correct with your theory, what should take its place?
The elite schools tend to produce the intelligentsia, not intellectuals. There is a difference. The intelligentsia work in corporate offices or universities and lead bourgeois lives of quiet desperation. Intellectuals, like James Baldwin or Christopher Hitchens, do anything but.
8
I graduated with a music degree from The Juilliard School—as elite a school as you can possibly attend in the U.S. It didn’t help. It’s a little known fact that many Juilliard graduates no longer work as musicians, because there are not enough good jobs (even for Juilliard grads). At age 24, I abandoned my music career—a hard decision that has haunted me ever since. There is no question in my mind that having Juilliard on my resume helped open doors to job interviews in my new career (marketing and communications). But what helped more—and how I landed jobs in my new career and starting working my way up the career ladder—had nothing to do with Juilliard. It was good old-fashioned interview preparation: for every interview I had, I studied for days or weeks (sometimes months) to learn everything I could about the company where I would interview. When the day of the interview arrived, I was ready to show that I’d done my homework and had intelligent ideas about how I could contribute to the company and their product or service. And after every successful interview, those companies told me I was far more prepared than any other candidate. It was my knowledge of their company that impressed them—not my degree. The fact that I went the extra mile before an interview showed them far more about my willingness to work than where I went to college. This is basic stuff, yet few young people ever do this today. Many young people have told me they just showed up.
13
Our plumber's daughter is making some smart choices. She's going to a community college for the first two years to save money to afford to transfer to a private college that in addition to academics trains its students in a markable trade. She already took courses at BOCES (Board of Cooperative extension services) where she learned to be and got her license as a beautician so her part time jobs will pay something.
A young relative went to graduate school at a private university that claimed 90% of the graduates in their program immediately got jobs. She took on quite a lot of debt then learned most of her fellow students were the children of people in the field with connections. It took her a while to find a job and it's not optimal.
Hi Frank,
I retired as a professor emeritus (applied genetics) four years ago. When I was at orientation for UC Davis in 1972 our counselor told us to look to the left and right. 'One of you three will not be here next year'. At that time, California supported its universities and colleges. Once Ron Reagon became governor that support diminished and nationwide colleges and universities became more diploma mills for pay than institutions of higher education. Higher education is hard, and attrition should occur.
Society should decide how many philosopers, linguistics majors, historians and scientists it needs. I think we still need a lot of well-trained scientists, but a BA in comparative literature is not so needed. We need plumbers, electricians, welders and farmers. We as a society should concentrate on what we need.
Cheers,
Tom Blake
3
@Thomas Blake
Reagan did more to destroy the UC system than anyone in recent memory. Yet his rich friends managed to raise enough money to put his name on the UCLA hospital. We know now, through recent recordings in Reagan's own voice, that he made racist remarks calling African delegates to the UN "monkeys" barely wearing shoes. The integrity of the university is at stake here and his name should be removed as soon as possible.
1
I've worked in higher education since last century, and there are still countless positive stories of how higher education transforms lives, opens minds, sparks connections, and provides opportunities that lead to personal and professional growth. The stories of fragile egos and status-obsessed students and parents is a symptom of losing sight of the deeper purpose of transformation that education provides.
2
The ugly truth is that social mobility is fairly limited in any society, and certainly in the US, with it's massive wealth disparity. Otherwise, it would assume that current elites are asleep at the wheel and not doing everything in their power to keep it that way.
It also explains the disappointment that often comes from attending even prestigious schools and yet showing meager results. It comes from assuming a causal relationship between elite schools and successful alumni, when a majority of these has doors open to them since the day they were born and will continue afterwards.
With that said, college is still one of the few options left to fight the odds, certainly to make a comfortable middle-class living, but the different playing fields are not affected by the degree itself.
2
On white, upper middle class Long Island, college entrance and attendance is a full time, full-on popularity contest that is fueled and perpetuated by parents, high schools, guidance counselors who what their stats to remain up, and the ultra completive world we choose to live in. Once you reach junior year, high school is over. We strive for the college decals to put on the back of our SUV's and we hammer away at trying to legitimize all of the failure we feel in our own lives through the perceived "success" of our children getting into "big name" schools. What gets lost in all of this is the value of education - any education - and the many ways in which to achieve one. Very, very sad all around.
5
Let's not forget two main points. First, there are still tens of thousands of young adults who graduate college each year without incurring soul-crushing debt and can find jobs that leave their sanity and dignity intact. Second, state universities still provide an excellent education while remaining relatively affordable compared to UPenn, Princeton, Middlebury, and all the other elite, private schools charging $60k or more each year.
7
I keep reading about this insane angst, and every time I ask, Really, what percentage of the student population is going thru this? There are over 45 hundred 2- and 4-year colleges in the U.S. Most are populated by students who are working towards a degree, some sort of training, to get a better job.
I'd say you're describing a fraction of the students going on to higher education. To be blunt - a freak show. Move on. Seen it before.
7
I went to one of the elite private liberal arts colleges and while I was exposed to a number of very valuable experiences there, I would warn students against such a choice now. The cost of the small liberal arts colleges simply isn't worth it, particularly if it means accumulating debt in order to attend. There is a lot of cognitive dissonance among those who do choose, or once chose, a small liberal arts college, trying to convince ourselves it was worth the cost because the quality was good. Maybe that was true when the tuition was $12,000 a year, but not now when it is $65,000 a year. For students who want to gain an interdisciplinary education, there are plenty of cost effective ways to do it. One need not buy into a single, small, private institution at the tune of $65,000/year in order to become educated.
6
It's cruel when you (in the media) pile on to the obsession that if you're not in the 5% that goes to a top 10 school then you are a failure. This is just plain wrong. Please stop obsessing on the top 10 schools.
12
@CJ Frank Bruni's columns and his book Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be argue just the opposite. Pointing out that other people are obsessed with only going certain places isn't saying this is a good thing.
Public High Schools and Colleges in California in the 1960’s and 1970’s told students, “We need you.” Since Proposition 13 stepped them of funding the damaging mantra has become, “You’re not good enough.” We need to go back to funding education at a higher rate than prisons.
2
Yeah, and wait until frat/sorority hazing...life is ridiculous hard these days being young, pushed and prodded and shoved by parents, grandparents, society in general. Bleah. Two years at a community college and a transfer to a state college. Done. Let's stop telling our kids they "can be anything they want to be," because it just ain't so.
2
@Karen Cormac-Jones Not all colleges have fraternities and sororities. Mine didn't, and that was a pro for me when I was picking where to go. I would encourage my children to go to a college without them or where they are not the focus of all social lives.
1
What a nightmare we’ve created for these young adults!! We have failed miserably to educate our youth that all decisions come with associated consequences (e.g., this college = this debt. Can I pay it off?). Too, there are a fair number of kids that get degrees that will ensure they’re the most over qualified baristas. At the same time we’ve diminished the the need and value of a “blue collar job” that, in many cases earn more than whatever is available after a four year college “education” (e.g., welder, machinist, HVAC tech, etc.). Not everyone should be going to college. As a society we have forced their decision. In many cases it’s the parents that use their children’s school as a trophy on which they brag. In addition, to what degree are these “elite” and expensive institutions culpable for making their ‘sheep skin’ so expensive?
What has been tragically created is an unsustainable model into which these young people have been thrust without regard for any of the real and unintended consequences that inevitably follow.
2
College?!? When did our entire country turn so cruel?
College is all of a piece with what our culture has become. Buy a company, strip it of its pension fund, load it up with debt, and walk away with a fortune!
Start a payday loan business, load up ignorant impoverished people with huge debts, and walk away with a fortune!
Outsource manufacturing of a once fine product to Asia, let the quality become shoddy but raise the price anyway, leave the Americans who once manufactured fine things a ruined town and dire poverty, and walk away with a fortune!
Use your billions to reshape government to do what you want it to! Create an oligarchy out of a Republic and walk away with a bigger fortune than you already have!
The disgusting mess college has become is just one glaring example.
It's the root cause we need to examine and correct.
6
@The Poet McTeagle,
Excellent post. You have pretty much summed up the source of many of this countries problems.
And, yet, many kids go to good schools (not Ivy league, not 'big name'), do well, are reasonably happy in those 4 years, graduate and have successful, happy lives. Yes, it is much too hard for kids who are disadvantaged. Higher education has gotten too expensive, even for the middle class. There is much we can and should do. That said, all the pressure about the 'right school' does not necessarily come from the colleges themselves.
We absolutely must do more to improve k-12 education in this country. It is a disgrace that some kids do not have decent schools at that level. We also must find ways to make funding of college and beyond less onerous. Beyond that, though, the kids' stress will not decrease until the bragging factor is brought under control. Kids and parents must understand that, no, the choice of college does not determine one's whole life & happiness. Success and happiness in life can be had even if the bachelor's is from Podunk U.
6
Books and articles like this one seem hell-bent to tear down the universities of this country. So scathingly negative. That students must figure out how to meet admission requirements and figure out how to pay for college is truly challenging. That the wealthy kids have it much easier is also undeniable. But I take exception to the idea that, having done all that "... [the universities] make it as hard as possible." Its not like evil administrators sit around thinking of elitist ways to keep people out.
1
As a little kid, I knew I would go to Brooklyn College, where my father went (reverse legacy?). It was free, it was near home, and it was good. That’s how I was raised, that’s what was expected of me. The fact that I had super SAT scores (with significantly over 700 in math), all sorts of honors, and top grades in an excellent high school - that made no difference, and I never thought it did. Brooklyn College it was, and I did well there, Phi Beta Kappa, math honor society, etc. I went on to earn a Ph.D from CUNY, I taught math at the college level (and remedial math in colleges) while earning my degree, and then worked in high-tech for 35 years. If anything held me back from achieving higher positions than I had, it was that I opted to have kids and wasn’t willing to work much overtime; not that I didn’t have a fancy shmancy degree. I’m now comfortably retired. I have what I need. No debt. Never had debt, other than a mortgage, which is long paid off. I don’t know what would have been different in my life had I striven for a high-prestige school. What’s my point in telling my story? I don’t know what everyone thinks they will achieve after going to the high-prestige school rather than a public institution, perhaps a commuter college. The elite schools breed the kind of lawyers who dream up the Opportunity Zone tax scams for the rich, or they put out physicists-turned-algorithm-developers who trigger some economic bubble, like sub-prime mortgages. I’m fine.
442
@Dfkinjer
You didn't say where your children went to college? And the difference in expense at your free university degree?
Parents would love to avail themselves of the good old days, but they are gone and what institution of higher learning you went to just because it has a prestigious name. No one wants their children to live with a life long debt . As with everything else today it isn't what you know but who you know and those connections are made in college. Sad, but true.
35
Nice.
10
@Dfkinjer My educational history is very similar - I also had top grades and SAT scores in high school and I went to CCNY (another CUNY school) which, at the time I went, was free. After graduation I taught at the CUNY Baruch business school and then earned a doctorate at UCLA. I had no college or graduate school debt, and I'm now comfortably retired.
25
Again, according to Bruni, there exists only the Ivy League and the next 8 or 10 elite colleges. His time would be better spent examining the middle tier of colleges, both private and public, where most students matriculate, which are increasingly run purely on a business model. At these institutions, low-paid adjuncts with no benefits are leading more and more classes. They are treated as interchangeable and disposable. Meanwhile, the administrators paring down secondary education in this manner are recompensed as if they worked in private, for-profit industries.
3
It's not college. College is a symptom, not a cause. Our kids stress about college for the same reasons we answer emails at 11pm after working a 60-hour week.
When you destroy the middle class and make the poor truly desperate, of course people are terrified of losing a foothold. Of course they are frantic about being out-competed for the last seats on the lifeboat.
We see how easy it is to be knocked out of the middle class. All you have to do is stand still. Heck, all you have to do is run slower than the guy next to you.
5
I know plenty of guys who did not go to college. They made millions. Other than doctors, colleges teach you to be obedient., stay in your cubicle. Act like a jerk oh and tomorrow you go to toledo. I paid for my own school and could not wait to get out. I forgot it all and did what was in my heart. That worked. You have it or you dont. Middlebury does not make the man. In fact the guys I know that went to Middlebury are little trust fund idiots. Go with your gut. You will survive.
3
@one percenter What did your millionaire friends who didn't go to college do?
Good luck becoming an attorney, a teacher, a psychologist, a physical therapist, etc., without a college degree. Doctor is not the only option.
2
This is just a guess, but perhaps colleges "turned so cruel" when newspapers became colleges' biggest boosters, declaring that a college education--or at least a degree--is so indispensable to one's future life that indentured servitude is not too high a price for it. Unchecked power tends to bring out the worst in people and corporate entities. Notice how, in the current scandal, celebrities trying to buy their kids' way into college are criminals, but not a word against the schools for accepting the bribes.
Even before that, however, a few decades ago, college alternatives, known more honestly as trade schools, with few or no entrance requirements, were allowed to rename themselves universities (the way Disneyland now calls itself a "resort" without a trace of irony) and raise their fees accordingly. To challenge this self-promotion is to invite rebukes of being snobbish, elitist, and even racist, as is to suggest that all colleges are not equal in every way. Thus, any number of graduates are finding out that their degree from Plainwrap University is not going to get them as far as one from Stanford.
My advice to high school graduates is still: internships! If at all possible, find a field that grabs you, get in on the ground floor doing grunt work, make contacts, and by the time your college-bound peers graduate, you'll already be where they'll spend the next several years trying to get.
2
We certainly have created so much cruelness, haven’t we? My hope for all students, whether they choose CC, small liberal arts college, state university or a selective ivy, is that they can grow and learn and think outside their box, and of course narrow down on a career. And where they don’t end up with huge debt they can’t repay. That is the KEY. And even more importantly, my hope is that they find mentors and instructors that love to teach and guide them- that will make all the difference to them, not how hard the school was to get in. Or if they chose Middlebury over Princeton. Good grief- so much anxiety in all of this. They/we can’t control what happens to jobs in the future- so let’s give them agency so they can hopefully figure it out when the time comes. That’s all I know what to do right now.
1
I just finished several years of college search with my two sons. We accepted years ago that our sons, as amazing as they are (tinge of sarcasm there) were not Ivy League material. We were unwilling to do what it takes to make it there from our town: private tutoring all the time, expensive activities, unrelenting pressure that robs childhood of, well, childhood. Both kids are at academically rigorous, affordable colleges. And both kids understand they have to hustle to get into the industries they want. I think in the long run it will pay off. In the short run, I know both are happy, adulting, working hard, and having fun.
3
Mr. Bruni,
I haven’t scanned through all the messages here, and see no obvious way to reach you offline, rather than here. Perhaps someone has already contacted you about Kiki’s predicament at Princeton.
If you haven’t been contacted about her, please contact me, or put her in contact with me.
I’m an online subscriber to The NY Times (and authorize you to track me down through that subscription with your business colleagues).
Regards,
David L. McLellan
1
The hysteria around going to right college is so stupid and unfounded. Parents are very guilty, keeping up with the Jones', being able to tell someone where their kid goes to school. I see it my own family. It is just so misplaced. College is 4 years of your life!!!!! If you live to be 80 then that is 5 percent of your life - you don't live and die during this four years! Where did all this come from? School does not necessarily determine overall success in life. The madness needs to stop and it needs to stop at home and kids need to quit jumping on this bandwagon of going into debt to pay for it. And newsflash - we taxpayers are NOT paying off your debts.
The irony is that Frank Bruni name drops schools in his opinion pieces more often than anyone I know does in public.
1
Is anyone else sick unto death about the NYT focus on the super elite Ivies and almost Ivies? Such a minority of kids go there. There are a ton of great liberal arts schools that aren't Middlebury or Swarthmore. Ditto, it's articles like this that make kids feel like they are a failure if they don't go to Yale or Harvard. Stop. Just stop.
7
This smacks of east coast elitism in its view. There are many good, cheaper colleges. I had a career as a science professor at a mid level university in the Midwest. Graduation follow ups show that those that take advantage of the opportunities offered do well. My biology department put 60% of its grads in further education ranging from med school to grad school to even mortician training. Another 30% got jobs in their field. The rest didn’t tell us what they did.
2
As is always the case, extremist capitalism, and the red-eyed lust for profit (please see Betsy Devoss,) has destroyed our educational system, from top to bottom. It is up to the remaining sane citizens to spread the message that, along with PEACE, health care, food and shelter, clean air and water, EDUCATION is a basic human need, and should be considered a human right. If we steer away from the NEOs, we may be able to save our future on this planet--just. It's ALL connected, folks.
4
I would argue that it's not just capitalism, but our specific system which demands immediate growth every quarter, along with CEO rewards for quarterly earnings. It used to be that corporations would look for well rounded, liberally trained individuals who could think and plan. Liberal Arts was perfect for that. The corporations would train these bright individuals about the specifics of their industries. Of course, this would involve a long term investment in people. Now corporations want trained, as opposed to learned, individuals, so they can create a quarterly profit as soon as they arrive. Now the CEO can leave with an insane bonus. No worries if the company fails in two years.
3
@ed--YUP.
The fun left when we determined that the only value that college offered was as the express route to a job. The mantra was and is go to college so you can get a good job. Nothing more, nothing less.
226
@marielle
I remember decades ago as a freshman in college being told by dorm friends that I had a "thirst for knowledge," which I stupidly thought we all had because we were in college at a good school! Who knew.
Over the years I have watched the emphasis shift to getting a job, not getting educated. Sad but true. I know it seems like a luxury to care and focus on learning about new things and to grow up knowing how to learn throughout your life, but what a great thing that can be! I didn't even do that well in college, but the basic skills and curiosity never left me. Gratitude!
15
@marielle,
College is no longer the express route to a job, far too much competition. it is however, the express route to lifelong financial illness and stress for those who cannot afford to pay cash for their studies. The colleges and universities are rife with suits that love to accumulate "endowment" money at the expense of faculty, students and humble university staff. There is a Midwestern prestigious university that pays its adjunct faculty so little that it destroys self-worth, and its supporting staff a Dickensian pittance.
7
@marielle Somebody once said that college should be less about making you a better employee, and more about making you a better person. Maybe it's naive of me, but I still believe that.
23
I recommend community colleges as a starting place for students who have financial constraints or who might have graduated from a high school that was not as rigorous as those in affluent neighbourhoods. Community colleges offer services such as reading and math courses to bring students up to the level required for university courses; learning centres that provide tutoring, computer assisted learning, and workshops on study skills, time management, and other skills peripheral to standard course work. Many states guarantee admission into the 3rd year of state universities for those students who have earned an associate degree at a community college.
5
If Shannen is a "sobbing wreck" worrying about admission to Princeton or Penn, she has misplaced values.
It is sad that she is not thankful for her exceptional abilities and prospects which are a gift.
There are hundreds of wonderful educational institutions which will welcome her.
The claim that one's future depends on admission to a prestigious institution is nonsense.
6
The American people have mindlessly accepted the falsehood that a college degree is essential to success in life and a guarantor of that success. It isn’t and never has been. What is essential is a well thought out career plan that considers one’s interests, goals and opportunities and balances that against the investment needed to achieve those goals. Another critical element often ignored is return on investment. It’s pathetic to watch the slack-jawed dullards who stumble their way through college and end up wondering why they have $250,000 in debt and can’t find a job.
1
I don't know that "college" turned cruel. College is college. What is cruel is society's tendency to value the name of the college a person attended over what the person got out of it, to look at the label on the package rather than what's inside.
College is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Having "Princeton" stamped on your forehead doesn't guarantee a good brain or a kind heart.
12
C’mon Frank, finish the thought. Texas admissions have been rethought - and downgraded.
2
Hey Frank,
Why don't you write a column that would do a real service to the world by examining the wonders of The City University of New York, the largest public urban university in the world? It's located in your city of residence, tuition is less than $7K/year, the faculty is world class and a vast majority of students graduate with NO STUDENT LOANS. Now there's a scoop.
Personally, I'm tired of hearing the endless harangue from students (and their families) who opt for elite private schools in which they neither belong nor can afford. We don't have a higher education problem; we have an American pretense problem. You alluded to that but didn't connect the dots towards a solution. Why?
6
@Richard almost without exception, friends and colleagues of mine now in their 40's and 50's regret getting advanced degrees from the ivies and say they'd do go to city university if they had to do it again.
@Richard - And SUNY, too.
1
We do not need “more, better college graduates.” Most grads learn little that’s useful; we do need “more best” college graduates.
"In rural North Carolina, .... She gets into Clemson". So, did she attend one of NC's state schools which- due to NC constitution, are much less costly than out of state Clemson? UNC has a program called Carolina Covenant which guarantees a qualified student will not be closed out due to lack of funds. Most in the program are first in family to attend. When this is the best example an article can muster, it lessens the credibility of its message.
3
This is such garbage!
Can we start with the fact that there are plenty of great colleges that are not in the Ivy League? There are loads of extremely capable and dedicated people working at great colleges and universities that are affordable and deliver top rate educations that don't carry the "elite" label. Believe or not graduates from these schools go on to have great careers and do great things in life. I get so sick of reading stories about brokenhearted high schools students who didn't get into Harvard and Yale. Please, just stop with this con!
5
Republicans would tell us to pull yourselves up by your bootstraps at the same time they take away your boots.
1
I love education. Not because it made me wealthy, it didn't, but because I love knowledge and learning. But if there is one thing I've learned after attending three different universities for my bachelor's degree and one for my master's degree it's that college is mostly a waste of time and money. I didn't even use the knowledge I acquired there and had to go back to school to pick up an associate's degree after that which would actually pay the bills. Like most things in this country, including our ridiculously poor healthcare, college is a total scam. Let it die a horrible death. My kids will get their education far more efficiently than I did and they won't have to return multiple times just to practice the trade they want that can actually put a roof over their heads. And, their career success won't have anything to do with the preposterous scam and exclusive members only club the rest of you seem so eager to keep promoting. Like your for profit healthcare, your watered down produce and beer, your dangerously unhealthy snacks and drinks and your phoney politicians, American "higher" education needs to be completely scrappedand replaced with something far better. It's a disgrace.
1
This is all just disgusting and ridiculous. I'm not sure which is the bigger liar: employment statistics or Donald Trump. Our job market is a joke. Our job training in the 21st century is an even bigger joke. If that isn't fixed, none of this will magically go away. Manufacturing is dead; get used to it.
It is so sad that some high school students believe that their worth as a person hinges on whether or not they attend an “elite” college. Who you are — and what you accomplish in life — has little or nothing to do with the name of the college on your diploma.
3
I started a postgraduate program at an Ivy League university this week. It feels like a Disney Cruise compared to the local NYC law school I attended (and despised with a fiery passion). Maybe the cruelty will come later, but for now, I’m just so grateful to be able to focus full-time on doing the work I care about in a positive environment—with funding.
And to head off any snarky replies, I got accepted by virtue of a $100 application fee, an “interesting” back story, and sheer dumb luck. No Aunt Becky, no photoshopped lacrosse photos.
3
No college education ever turned any of my black African enslaved and free person of color ancestors nor their heirs as white and equal as the high school graduates Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Ivana Trump, Peter Jennings. Tom Brokaw, Melania Trump, Walter Cronkite and Brian Williams.
The purpose of education is to learn how to think creatively, independently and originally. In order to advance human knowledge and understanding.
Wisdom begins with recognizing our ignorance aka ' I don't know'. Curiosity is the cure for ignorance. Not knowing that 2+2=4 is ignorance. Knowing that 2+2=5 is stupidity an incurable terminal condition.
Going to college for no purpose other than socioeconomic status is not very smart. I know plenty of college graduates with little or no common nor street sense aka educated fools.
2
There is no country in the world which offers as many opportunities to acquire a higher education than "les Etats Unis,"even if u r here illegally,and if so, your tuition can even be waived. How nonsensical to cite the case of Shannen who is worried sick about getting into Princeton or U. of Penn, Trump's alma mater by the way!Why not settle for a community college or CCNY where, as a resident, tuition costs r next to nothing?"Reflechissez:"There is no such thing as a bad h.s. or college, only bad students who fail to take advantage of opportunities to raise their cultural level, graduate, while benefitting from the "sabiduria"of their teachers. As a dean in a "zone school"for 25 years which had to accept anyone, even those with criminal records, but who turned out to be extremely sharp,I know whereof I speak. If it's any consolation to all the Shannens of this world, many media stars have often little formal education beyond a B.A., often from a local university! On MSNBC there is 1 pundit who never even finished h.s.and another on FN who was 1 credit short of graduating but decided he couldn't be bothered since he was making so much money as it was!Clara, poor thing, wanted Middlebury but her parents insisted on Yale? What is going on here? To employ modern argot, Messieurs Bruni and Tough r both out to lunch."Quelle rigolade!"
1
Chill out....there is life without the Ivy League.
235
@Skier
People definitely care though. Going to an Ivy League school brings huge social cache for your entire life, whether fair or not. Speaking from my experience as a graduate of such an institution.
7
@Skier
As someone who spent my entire young career in the outdoor industry, I can speak personally to your comment. I was even offered a job at Alta once. I know where you're coming from.
There is life without Ivy League. It's just a much harder one. You need to know that going in. The first time you blow a knee or an ankle on a ski slope with lousy pay and even lousier health insurance you will receive a very harsh lesson in this reality. We regularly collected funerary donations for families who couldn't afford the untimely death of their "breadwinner."
That's what "chilling out" means in real life. Unless you're independently wealth, you can expect mediocre pay for your education with endless economic insecurity. Enjoy youth while your young but everyone has to grow up eventually. You don't get a do-over so don't plan on one.
8
@Skier
You're right. Absolutely right.
But that's not the culture we live in. The vast majority of people held up as "paragons" of our meritocratic society - Presidents, SCOTUS Justices, CEOs all went to these top-tier schools. It's not surprising that when those people are held up to the young people of the world and told "This is what Success looks like. They went to Harvard/Yale/Cambridge/MIT," it's not surprising that they home in on that and focus on it.
A lot of young people today are terrified of failing to launch, and in a culture that prizes success and "being the best, being a leader", no one wants to hear "Oh, I got my BS in Psychology from my local small-town college." There's actually a fairly large issue with declining applications numbers at small schools because of this issue - the name of the game these days is not necessarily the quality or affordability of your degree, but the "Brand" associated with it. In the age of social media, brand is unfortunately all that matters. And in the world of higher ed, the Ivy League boasts the biggest brand name.
8
Like the vast majority of successful college graduates, I attended large public state universities - land grant universities with strong academic programs. Undergraduate tuition was modest and I had research assitantships for the master's and doctorate. I graduated with no debt and became a career college professor. The notion that you need to attend an expensive "elite" university to be successful leads many high school students astray. Presently, I teach and do research at a minority-serving institution where over half of the students are the first generation of college attendees in their families. In their senior year, they are heavily recruited by government and industry. They are able to work their way through with minimal debt and to become successful. Some are recruited by the "elite" universities for graduate school - universities that would not have given them a second glance as high school seniors. Wisely, many choose to attend the state flagship for graduate or professional school.
5
@Mark - This also works here, where you can get a great education at SUNY, the campuses of the State University of New York.
2
I live near American University and have visited countless offices there, volunteering to tutor students who need help. I’m a former city college math instructor as well as a writer. One assistant provost spoke at length with me and said she would get back to me but never did.
I also offered to help connect the university with other retired neighbors. I guess the bureaucracy there doesn’t allow for free support.
1
I worked with a woman whose daughter went to Yale and loved it. When it was time for her son to consider colleges, he picked NYU. For years, in fact throughout his college career, she told everyone he went to Yale. She couldn't face the "shame" of NYU when Yale was a possibility.
While at the Cornell yesterday I was struck by how serious...nay, morose, the students looked as they walked on the magnificent campus overlooking Cayuga Lake. They worked so hard in high school and won the sweepstakes that college admissions has become. Bruni's important piece explains why they aren't skipping to classes with smiles on their faces.
I was lucky enough to go to a good school, and I obtained both a bachelors and a masters. Despite my higher level of education I've never made much money. And I will never make much money unless I am lucky enough to get a job in a larger city. That seems unlikely as for my profession every time a position opens there are hundreds of applicants. And that's not an exaggeration. If I could do it all again I would learn a skill or a trade. I'd have saved a lot of money and not gone into debt. Like many people my age I thought an expensive degree would provide a lifetime of security. So far this is not the case.
2
I count myself pretty lucky re my college education. I am also fortunate to have starting working part-time by the time I was 15. I worked part-time through high school and college, and when I graduated at the start of the recession of 1970, jobs were scarce so I worked full-time where I had been part-time.
As for college, I was fortunate to have a fully supportive mother who was raising me on a teacher's salary. But that was not enough for tuition. But a generous cousin graciously helped out through my college years. Lucky me.
When I worked on a campus (which will remain nameless) of the University of California, I witnessed what seemed like the sort of cruelty Mr. Bruni describes. But in the UC system, there is a campaign to recruit more out-of-country students — in particular, from Taiwan, China and India, more than anywhere else — to raise the UC revenue stream. In-state tuition, apparently, doesn't pay the bills. Even in my own family arena, kids with a 4.0GPA have been turned away, while those desired campuses then load up on international students.
For instance, let's say your child has worked endlessly to achieve the GPA needed for UCLA. They may be referred to UC Santa Cruz or UC Merced as an alternative. Or, they may be told to apply to the CalState system. All this student angst just to admit more foreign students.
And then, there are UC professors who must also use much of their time fundraising to support their modest salaries.
Changes must come soon.
Although I haven't read Tara Westover's book EDUCATED, I did hear her in an interview on C-SPAN. She talked about how her father always advised her that the best way to learn something is to teach yourself. I find that to be sound advice since, of course, you will certainly pick subjects that sincerely interest you and you will apply yourself most deeply because of that interest.
1
@WalterZ - If you'd read her book, you would not want to follow any of her father's advice!
1
You should read it. Everyone should. I'm still amazed by her.
What about the thousands of recent college graduates who can’t locate jobs? Many toil away hours working in coffee shops, department stores and other similar locations. The federal government should be required to employ as many of these young well educated people ASAP.
No, we DON'T need more college graduates! We need better ones, perhaps even fewer ones.
What we need is better, more appropriate education, at all levels below college. That means agressive tracking, keeping students of equal abilities together. It means keeping disruptive students away from studious ones. It means keeping students disabled enough to need help from slowing down normal ones.
It means bussing only the very best students to special, superior, schools. Everybody else goes to neighborhood schools.
It means finally realizing that most ability is determined by inheritance, and that some groups of people are on average simply less intelligent that others. It means grouping the average ones with their intellectual peers, and the superior ones with their peers.
This means, for example, exactly opposite what a certain New York official seems to want to do.
This should continue into college .. the best students for the best colleges. It means getting rid of "diversity" in colleges.
What we need is uniformity ... uniformity of quality.
4
@Doug McDonald
Really?? “Some groups of people...are on average simply less intelligent than other groups.” It’s obvious where you’re coming from.
In all these discussions about the inequality, fear and loathing, mistreatment and high cost/debt of college, I rarely hear the word "state university". State universities are affordable, are egalitarian, provide nets to catch disadvantages minorities and those from any disadvantaged upbringings. If all we're measuring today is acceptance into Princeton or Harvard or Yale then we are missing the true narrative--in fact, these are not the best educational institutions for undergraduates (they are expensive, alienating, and "tribal.") We're doing a disservice to young people and their parents by pretending that they will only succeed if they begin their college education in those place. Our society needs to start emphasizing state universities as the first step. When we talk about college debt no one separates private-school debt from public-institution debt. When we talk about undergraduate education no one separates the value of the engineering, math, technology, and science in state universities compared to those in private (especially religious) colleges. We want to uplift generations of kids--then we need to have intelligent, strategic debates/discussions about higher education.
4
Once again I am so proud to have graduated from the enlightened University of Texas at Austin! A wonderful school still living up to its charter to make possible a first class education to all Texas children who have the desire to work for it! God Bless UT Austin!
2
I don’t see anything wrong with attending a state school. I did and found that hiring managers don’t really care what is at the top of that diploma.
Sure, Yale and Harvard have the wow factor but if you are poor you are going to be paying back on that wow for 25 years.
2
Reality is that hiring managers do care what is at the top of your diploma. Prospective students and their parents should research campus recruiting and admissions to top graduate programs. Consider what happens at the end, not just admissions. Twenty or thirty years from now hiring managers will still care because a diploma is a pedigree, a vetting of intelligence - right or wrong, it is reality.
3
@Addie
I moved around the corporate world quite a bit and in my experience, college pedigree matters virtually nothing moving past the initial entry level positions. Certainly possible that this is different in other industries . I can imagine how any company would survive by basing all hiring decisions on what school someone attended.
1
@Addie - Twenty or thirty years from now you should be established in your career, and if hiring managers have any sense that's what they will be looking at.
1
In a nation without a tight class structure and founded on the ideal of equality of all citizens, what everyone wants the most is to stand out. it is the root of a kind of American social illness. In other countries around the world, one can be born to parents of laborers or cafe waiters and not feel great pressure to move beyond that financial and social status. Not here. Because opportunity is presented as being unlimited, why aren't you a millionaire at 30? What's wrong with you?
Why do we have the notion of "elite" education when in one year not so long ago Boston.com reported that more than 60% of undergraduate classes at Harvard were taught by adjunct professors, meaning those lowest on the academic scales of teachers? For the most part, the so called elite colleges are where the wealthy sent their kids for 150 years or so and now everyone who has the chance wants to join that club.
Why do we allow this to continue? Why do we worship the mythology of "the best" schools when education and general enlightenment is an individual quest based in large part on the ability of the student to command the mind to learn? The answer is easy: it is better in our country to be labeled as special because of prestige than it is to actually be and do something special.
One downside of the top schools is that students are so burdened in keeping up with the course load, doing research and papers that they don't have time to...think...on their own. A good degree and a bad experience.
6
In my opinion, the most important statement in this piece is where Frank repeats the fact that, "collage is the new high school." This is the case and we must accept this reality. Where earlier generations were able to find jobs that paid well enough to support and grow a family with only a high school degree, today it takes the "right" college degree. The factory and manufacturing jobs are going, going, gone. The facts belie the group think, that these jobs "were moved overseas." However, that is not the case for the majority of the jobs. The majority of the jobs were lost to automation. Car factories that used to employ 3000+ employees working three shifts a day, are not run with 300 people. The quality and quantity have also improved. This is just a preview of what our children will face in the future. To continue to be strongly competitive in the world economy, the US must accept that college is now the same as high school was in the past. Our education systems at the lower levels have not changed with the times and are no longer sufficient in providing the level of knowledge required to have a moderate future. The US must find a way to make four years of college available to every student that wants it. Like it or not this is a national interest issue now and should be treated as such.
1
Frank,
I fear that you're assuming--how I wish it were true!--that the kids are entitled to a college experience that went out with those old Peter Lawford movies.
1) Life = stress and insecurity. (Not only those, but you can't eliminate 'em, not matter how much you love Junior.)
2) To make it worse, the US downright flaunts our total indifference to our kids. College debt. No pensions. (Diminishing unions.) A crazy-quilt and expensive health-care system. Ditto child care. And housing. Trashing natural resources. Trashing notions of civilized behavior. And of course, nothing says "we don't care about you" like refusing to address gun violence.
College as expression of our class system has always been cruel. The GI Bill opened college doors to the lower orders--that's us, and how lucky we were. In this, as in so much, times have changed.
Thank you.
4
I grew up in Connecticut, where I was trained from birth that if you don’t get into an Ivy League school, you are a failure. It’s interesting and a bit sad that this attitude now seems to be prevalent all across the US, and apparently across income brackets. It used to be just spoiled rich kids who thought this way. My own parents went to state schools but they also drank the Kool-Aid on the value of a fancy degree.
It was my form of teenage rebellion to say Enough and enroll at a small liberal arts school in the Midwest. I consider it the best decision I’ve ever made. I fell in love with learning and studying. I met normal people for the first time in my life, earnest people who weren’t cutthroat competitors and snobs. I bloomed. And I graduated with two degrees in three years. I’m still in touch with a handful of my professors, most of whom truly cared about students and took their roles of teaching and advising seriously. Do I get some snobby/confused looks when I disclose my undergrad institution in professional settings here in NYC? Absolutely. Have I “missed out” on the opportunity to work on Wall Street? No question. That’s part of why I did it.
Also worth pointing out that I learned more at my tiny, unknown liberal arts school than I ever did back on the East Coast at a regional law school a few years later. That latter experience was something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
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An old adage puns, “ you can lead a girl to Vassar, but you can’t make her think.” I am an adjunct at a non-elite four year small state college. Some of my students are high achieving high school pupils who are taking college level courses; some can barely speak English; and some are low income who cannot afford to attend any other college. Many do not have the educational background that affluent parents give their children. The ones who excel, despite their background, have intellectual curiosity, ambition, empathy, and kindness regardless of their culture. No school can provide these qualities. They come from within one’s character or dedicated parents, peers and caring professors who motivate the students with positive guidance. To my amazement, one student wrote to me years after she took my class that one line of poetry in a poem by T. S. Eliot, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons” instilled in her a desire to live a meaningful life full of service instead of existing as wealthy Prufrock did. It did not matter that she attended a little state college. What mattered is that she turned her knowledge into wisdom.
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But was she able to get a job when she graduated? Did she float for two or five years as a waiter or retail clerk then enroll in a social work or medical technologist program? Sadly, college is not college. Students and families need realistic expectations of their options at the end of four years, by major and institution.
@Addie
There is absolutely nothing wrong with earning a bachelors degree to explore post high school educational opportunities. Whether graduate school or enrolling in a medical technology certificate later, are both positive outcomes. The path to employment can vary. One needs to be mindful of the costs however.
2
A large part of the problem is that employers use degrees to filter job applicants. Thus, you need a college degree to manage a department in Target or a Starbucks store. My students go to college in order to get jobs rather than because they want to learn something.
5
Far too many Americans are admitted to college and think that going there is some kind of a punched ticket to the magic kingdom of the bourgeois life. The middle class is vanishing under the reign of the 45th president and so are innumerable jobs that artificial intelligence and automation have obviated. We can't all sell cannabinoids for a living either. Nowhere is there anything like a vision of the future that provides a meaningful existence to any of us, just a continuation of the existential joke that life in the 21st century is.
3
@Tournachonadar -- Yang2020
Researchers can measure few gains in useful skills in graduates with non-professional degrees over the course of their 4 years in college.
Most people are not well suited to spending an extended time at university. They're bored by the material; they are not seeking to improve themselves through critical thinking and learning about humanity. They are there to get a credential that will allow them to apply for lucrative jobs.
Employers, both private and public, continue to required a bachelors degree for more and more jobs despite the lack of any correlation between having a degree and being able to do those jobs; many jobs that require a degree for new applicants are largely held by non-graduates now. Those same employers complain about skills shortages. They want workers who are better prepared to work, but they aren't getting them by hiring people with bachelors degrees.
60% of 18-year-olds enter college. Only 30% end up with a 4 yr degree. Perhaps 20% end up with a job where that degree is really needed. Fewer students should be going to college; maybe 25% are prepared, capable, and enthused to do so. The rest should be in skills programs that start in high school, that involve paid internships alongside classes, that produce graduates with useful skills and no debt, like Germany or Switzerland.
50% of the freshmen starting school this month will fail. That's a failure for all of us.
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As a college professor myself, I can tell you that in addition to the points made by Frank, several other drivers are at work.
1) By far the most pressurized and distorted situations often occur in immigrant families who will go to any lengths to ensure that their first generation children attend the "highest rated dream schools." These are the parents that often claim to "own" their children - to control all aspects of their lives, especially having to do with school. I point out to these poor students that their parents do not own them, and that in the USA people are not property. Many are surprised if not liberated by this realization.
2) The desire of elite schools to seem ever more elite. That means a lower acceptance rate. Ever lower to them means ever more exclusive, and frankly, ever more out of reach for the children of average Joes and Janes.
3) Diversity. The "diversity" business has convinced many Asian and white students that they are disadvantaged in the admissions process, creating even more stress. Whether this is actually true is beside the point; it is a widespread stress-inducing perception.
4) A frankly sick fixation on the Ivy League and its congeners. So many schools afford an equivalent if not better education, but it is pointless to convince people so focused on these elite schools. I suspect that besides prestige, the real driver here is the possibility of a supra-elite networking opportunity rather than any educational experience.
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College has largely become an exercise in obtaining credentials rather than in getting an education. Like trying to secure acceptance to an exclusive club that will provide you with various privileges. I wonder what will become of students who want to learn how to think critically and find the truth in life? I suspect that those with the superior credentials will push them aside.
4
The thinkers will go to the prestigious, highly selective liberal arts colleges then a top graduate school. They will get the Ivy degrees at the graduate level so they are employable in leadership roles: medical school, law school, business school.
@Addie
Yes, of course, that's all the "thinkers" of this world do. Who would have known?
1
A high school student should be accepted based, in part upon their long-term goals and their corresponding likelihood of realizing them!
The statistical chances of staying in school and actually graduating could be improved by corporate and professional internships. On matriculation to college, a student should prepare to declare a major (within one-two years). This approach will reduce the party and social privilege culture that corrupts the true purpose of higher education: a productive and successful cultural, civic, political and national citizenry in a democracy. When students learn properly in their early years, they return the skills, training, expertise and ingenuity acquired at the University to society!
It also bears mentioning that for [how] many brilliant inventors and writers like Steinbeck, Jobs, Gates and others, college was too theoretical and perhaps too pedagogical. They were ready sooner than within four years. So they left to make their resounding marks on society. No college can take the credit for them. If a fast track for bright student existed, to allow them to present a graduation project to a few select professors and (if successful in defending their thesis), take an early degree, think how much more the degree might mean to all students.
In a society crying for innovation, this could reframe the definition of a college degree!
2
There are many options for those seeking a college degree. 4 year colleges and community colleges are a great way and affordable way for student to begin the journey. I know because I am a full time professor at one. Many of the students spend the first two years here and then transfer to what they consider to be a better institution-a state research university for example.
I grew up white middle class and my parents used Pell grants and student loans to help pay for my 4 years at perfectly fine state university. I worked all through college and paid for my graduate degrees by obtaining students loans while working --and guess what? I paid the loans back!
I am so tired about hearing about these poor and/or minority students going to ivy league or upper tier universities and complaining about how expensive they are or 'not fitting in'. Since when do we owe them a free ride to the ivy league?
I am thankful for the hardworking students at the 'open access' four year (formally community) college where I work. Many are commuters and are holding down jobs and raising families. Some are fresh from high school. All trying to better their economic prospects the old fashioned way-through effort, hard work and yes, the occasional 'hand up'.
Why should we 'forgive' student debt for those who willingly and knowingly made conscious choices and attended better schools than the average middle class family can afford?
It gets even more interesting the further you go in your academic career.
At one point I had been admitted to a Ph.D. program and was mid-semester when a family member took sick and it was on me to provide care. The comment from the graduate school, and this is a quote, was
"Any one who drops out of a Ph.D. program to deal with a family emergency has no place in graduate school.".
To tell the truth, I value people more than a graduate program. I could (and did) get into another graduate program after it was all over. But if I am expected to put the graduate program ahead of my family, well, no thanks.
If this attitude makes me unsuitable for modern academia, so be it. I can go off into a corner and read Kant by myself.
8
As a high school teacher for 23 years, I can tell you that all of this got MUCH worse when the iphone appeared in the hands of every student - around 2011. This phenomenon only worsened with the advent of social media, particularly Instagram - which helps to feed the illusion that life is one big status-filled party and most of you aren't invited.
Consequently, College has become like the Fyre Festival: it looks like it's going to be a blast but when you get there it's just soggy tents and bad food - all premium priced.
Only a few will see through this. My kids will.
6
This is a mess that is much bigger than colleges and we can't expect colleges to solve it. It starts with the top 1% being allowed to become fabulously wealthy by stealing from the rest of us: union-busting, detaching wage increases from productivity increases, moving good manufacturing jobs offshore,etc. To the point where, now, there is a huge gulf between the wealthy and the rest of us, and no social mobility mechanism that allows anyone to leap that gulf. A college degree used to be a ticket into the upper-middle class, now it is at best a ticket to a precarious middle class existence.
Going along with this trend is a takeover of universities by MBAs intent on running them like businesses, as many other comments have pointed out. College should not be primarily a place to prepare people for the labor force; it should be a place to prepare people to be educated, thoughtful, responsible citizens. With the complexity of our economy and of the problems we face, the last thing we need is a cohort of people prepared to be men and women of the corporation and nothing beyond that. As the MBAs have degraded the civics aspects of our educational system, look at what our politics have become: people yelling sophomoric insults at one another.
7
Sounds like high school mindset is still there. The goal has been reduced to win the lottery to get a seat, then check the attendance box and get the certificate. The let down is that once you begin college, you have to actually do the academic work if you want to stay in. Big change from high school, where the staff in many schools is gaming admissions by not offering AP/honors in English, Math and Science so the 'right' students of certain subgroups can be labeled as having 'taken the most challenging classes available'.
Grad, and that may be the foot in the door for your next opportunity. Or not, depending on what you want to do with yourself.
Its time to give every student the opportunity to be college ready academically, not just certain subgroups.
1
This was an interesting column but, in my view, it misses a few points. First, we need to acknowledge that four year college isn’t for everyone. I’m from a working class family and have nothing but respect for people who can build things. I can barely change a lightbulb! We need more emphasis on and RESPECT for the trades and certificate programs. We need much better education around decision making. A four year college experience isn’t necessary. Start at the community college and work. Get the gen eds out of the way and figure out what interests you. Then look around for a school that meets your needs. One doesn’t have to go to Purdue or Kentucky or Clemson. Sure, it would be fun but life isn’t all fun.
Second, I don’t see much, if any analysis, of just why college costs so much. Yes, state contributions have declined but costs have also risen exponentially. Why are there so many staff positions (and I’m not just referring to overpaid athletic coaches) and are they all necessary. Are so many majors necessary? Is it really necessary for all the related campuses of state institutions to offer every major? Raising taxes can’t be the only answer.
Third, are we ready to acknowledge and accept that the European “free tuition” model comes with not only higher taxes but also serious tracking beginning at a young age to determine whether a child is college material. Neither point will be particularly popular and I can already hear the howling from right AND left.
1
@Semper Liberi Montani
Thanks for making the point about the free european tuition model, this does not mean free college for everyone, it is decided pretty early on who is going to be accepted and who then has the other choices of going to a trade school.
Actually the united States could use as many students would fare better in a trade school, and could be hooked up with the transition to green energy.
The problem in the US is that we have downgraded the trades, and brought up a generation too lazy to do any manual labor does not help.
The fact is that we are all globalized, and that is why colleges are harder to get into, and international students pay full tuition.
You can go to a big name state school, and still do well in life, so the pressure to get into the ivy league is self imposed.
Those who spend big money on a liberal arts degree you should only be doing that on a scholarship or if you have big family money.
It is hard for students today to balance all the activities, the grades and the SAT's or applicable state tests, but life is hard and demanding so better to learn those lessons now on how to balance and excel.
And for poor students with high aspirations, it has never been easy, that is also some fantasy that the media has created, but this happens every day all over the world, in the US we have become wussy's with safe spaces and such.
It is a disservice to the next generation if we lie and say this is all easy.
1
As an undergraduate and , later, as a graduate student at the same California state university, I was never saddled with debt because California state universities were tuition free at that time (This, of course, changed under Governor Reagan who thought that UC Berkeley students had too much time on their hands.) Then there was my less than generous stipend from the Veteran's Administration for my military service. The times, however, have changed.
My life has not been unsuccessful because I didn't attend a prestigious university. Neither is my life bogged down with college debt, something that my children were and are still saddled with (Yes, we help with that debt.).
So, what's the point here? It's this. Attend colleges that won't bankrupt you. Vote for candidates who will support tuition-free state universities, and don't get hung up on being able to brag about what university you've attended. Instead, live a whole life as fully as possible, one that is free of angst brought about by degree envy.
3
I taught engineering for 30+ years at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, NM. It is no Yale or Harvard, but it recently ranked in the top 15% on ROI (Return on Investment). I know from experience that attendees can get a good education there. I've taught the children of former students of mine.
My point is that if, somehow, a high school student and his or her parents can put aside the name of the school, and just focus on the program they want, then there are many less stressful and affordable options. You shouldn't pick out an vehicle based solely on color. You could end up with a convertible when you really just wanted, perhaps needed, a pickup truck.
4
College, housing, most jobs... all of these essentials are getting harder to get. Our society is going backwards as we get divided into haves and have-nots. It is no surprise to me that getting into and paying for college was once a concern but is now a struggle that determines your future. So is investing in (not just buying!) housing at the right time and place, and getting into the right company at the right time.
Did we really think we could monitize everything in sight without making life more cruel for the rank and file? In these types of cases, one person's fortune is many other people's burden.
College and it's out of control cost is the new form of indentured servitude aimed squarely at the middle class. The fact that a few lottery tickets are held out for low-income students as well as athletic standouts has created all kinds of perverse and unhealthy behaviors within families. Should an inner-city wellfare mom take the opportunity to move her bright middle-schooler to a neighboring suburban school with high ratings? Not if the College Board's "adversity score" is going to be used when it comes time for the lottery drawing for low-income applicants. And what about vocational careers? How is the dating market for male plumbers, or even female electricians? Chances are they won't have much to choose from locally in their age group until they hit 30! What about the big business of farming athletic potential in every kid who is old enough to kick a ball or swing a bat?! The youth sports industry would be deflated back to it's sane size from the mid-20th century overnight if parents weren't forced to gamble on sports as their kids ticket into college / college scholarships.
1
Here's another cruel college "turn" many do not know. The cause for the usurious rise of tuition rates for several decades can be found on a campus near you.
When the government allowed college students to borrow without limits, colleges continued to raise tuition rate far beyond the rise of inflation.
"Why rob banks?" bank robber Sutton was asked many moons ago. "Because that's where the money is." The billions borrowed for tuition etc ended up building more Taj Mahal infrastructures on campuses everywhere. Check out the athletic facilities, folks...they are second to none, save the NFL.
The difference here, sad to say, is those monies borrowed those many years came out of our own taxpayer pockets. Politicians now want to trade that enormous debt for votes next election. Poof! The millions of debts are gone.
Anyone want to guess who's going to cover the loss?
2
Why is if a surprise we have a top-down, east coast centric view of college when every other facet of [pop media] if not wealth has consolidated in small circles of east coast urban areas where opportunity supposedly concentrates. There are many great schools in every state — likely better than ivies depending on what you are studying. It’s no accident even media has consolidated into east coast powerhouses like the NYT and Wapo making secret backroom deals with Facebook — do the St Louis Post Dispatch get invited to these meetings?
One reason why I scoff at the notion of removing the Electoral College is that it would be just one more excuse for the coasts to ignore the, in some cases, superior work being done in the middle of the country. Much of the NY scene has stagnated into a kind of global cities clique while real center of urban design culture has moved from NY to Chicago, St Louis and Detroit.
3
The problems outlined in this piece seem to be more about society then college per se.
5
Ron Susskind’s “A Hope in the Unseen” documented a similar story years ago with great skill:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=a+hope+in+the+unseen+ron+suskind&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxvXLmIq25AIVip-zCh1lcgwcEAAYASAAEgLAxvD_BwE&hvadid=241630286619&hvdev=t&hvlocphy=9067609&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=17703169346441384754&hvtargid=aud-647006051489%3Akwd-19816442967&hydadcr=9393_10387826&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_39v6f2fuk9_e
Perhaps because the higher education system has been completely controlled by liberals for the last 10-15 years?
4
The cruelty for my NYU son will come after graduation from the film school, with more than $100k in debt. He's having a great experience and I have no doubt he's getting a very good education, but it comes at an extremely high cost for our family. Now in his senior year, he's facing the worry of needing a job that pays well enough to cover his debt payments, coming due 6 months after graduation, for decades most likely. And I fear for his ability to not only cover the debt, but save for starting a family for a house, and retirement. I can only hope and pray that Elizabeth Warren is elected and is able to pass student debt forgiveness, it might be the only answer, short of my son hitting it big.
12
@JS While I feel for you and your son, in that you've been sold a bill of goods by NYU, the idea that you're hoping for a tax payer bailout is what turns lots and lots of people off to progressive ideas like those of Elizabeth Warren. Some people forego NYU film school because they know it will lead to life ruining debt. Some people save more. Some people choose cheaper schools. Some people choose a more pedestrian course of study than film. And those people will feel punished if and when debt forgiveness comes along.
127
@JS Yes, student loan debt is creating a permanent "renter" class. Another transfer of working Americans wealth to the investor class.
8
@Dan B I have been paying off my BA for nearly 15 years. I would have loved to have gone on for higher education: a masters or even a PhD but knew that that was only for rich kids. I’ve carried that sadness for along time. Despite having this debt and a nearly worthless BA, I wouldn’t begrudge free college or debt forgiveness. Having walked the road of repayment for so long, I know what a burden it is and don’t wish it on anyone.
42
College is not cruel. These are 'hells' of one's own creation, and ones that would provoke bitter laughter in many parts of the world.
4
Our generation screwed this up. This girl was stressed about getting into Princeton or Penn, when she would have done just fine at a state school. Too many people buy the hype of the Ivy leagues. Not enough time to fully explain, cuz this non Ivy League educated person has to get to his job
7
Anxiety among striving families about getting into elite colleges is not really the problem in upper education. There are real politico-economic factors which curtailed the expansion of affordable college, including contraction of spending by states, growth of expensive executive bureaucracies in the institutions themselves, the rise of essentially fraudulent for-profit colleges, and turning over the college loan business to predatory businesses.
5
I had a career teaching at a state college in PA where we gave a very good education taught by teachers that were more interested in teaching than publishing many articles. If all that today's students aspire to is Ivy League colleges or their ilk no wonder they are disheartened. But they might try state colleges (now universities) that provide a very good education, are affordable, not so difficult to get into, and their graduates do very well in future careers. I get sick and tired of these schools being forgotten when folk talk about "college".
8
For students who want a high quality faculty, whose first priority is teaching, and don't want to bury themselves in debt:
Consider a SUNY comprehensive college!!!
They're the smart choice (and essentially tuition-free for most New York residents)!
121
@PhilO
In case you are wondering, the SUNY (State University of New York) comprehensive colleges are located in Brockport, Buffalo, Cortland, Fredonia, Geneseo, New Paltz, Old Westbury, Oneonta, Oswego, Plattsburg, Potsdam, Purchase, and Saratoga Springs. Plus they offer a HUGE variety of online programs as well as 'degree completion' opportunities for people who started their degrees elsewhere.
I am a double SUNY grad, the father of a SUNY grad, the husband of a SUNY grad (and the ex-husband of a SUNY grad), the son of a SUNY grad, the brother of two SUNY grads, the brother-in-law of two SUNY grads, and the uncle of a current SUNY student...
SUNY is AWESOME!
18
@PhilO
You forget SUNY Albany, which is interesting given that you list your address as Albany.
4
@PhilO You literally forgot the two biggest campuses: Binghampton and Stony Brook
5
Another book about the 1% and their concerns. If you want to study higher education how about looking where 95% of American students actually attend college?!? Where I live 130,000 students are campus-based students at Miami Dade College. They are not worried about getting accepted only by Middlebury and not Yale. They are not trying to become the new privileged. They are just trying to find a path to the middle class, not New York Times editorial pages.
4
the intense competition for college has ruined school for our nation's children, who dread September.
1
I have news for everyone. LIFE IS CRUEL. Period. I have worked in the corporate world as a secretary (drone) for 30 years and the workplace has become a heartless environment where you can be harassed on a daily basis and you have no recourse whatsoever. This is due to arbitration agreements. So when your corporation tells you that they do not allow bullying, etc., THEY'RE LYING.
2
What next? A column about how students like these are sweating to get hired by some prestigious Wall Street firm or Silicon Valley company?
7
The plural of anecdotes isn't data.
Kim is a North Carolina citizen. Why is she choosing to attend a South Carolina land grant and to pay out-of-state tuition?
Shannen's stressed out. I'm not poor, but I'd be stressed out, too, just from worry over whether I'd fit in at the eating clubs. Suggestion: matriculate at City University Honors Program and spend three weeks at a charm/finishing school between junior and senior year. A Princeton education without the social stress.
Clara! Promise your parents you won't major in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies or spend your time with SJWs, and maybe your parents will approve your attending Middlebury.
10
We’ve from college being the greatest was to scale people to the greatest way to scam them.
1
Princeton, Penn, Yale, Middlebury, Clemson.....another elitist opinion piece on American colleges. Maybe the US should look at how the rest of the world handles university education. But wait. It is college football season so we should leave these considerations for later.
2
With respect: College is now is a tax -exempt competitive business that is running perfectly. "Social Darwinism" is our reality. Social Darwinism means dog eat dog war of diminishing resources where top name colleges (like USC in LA) win where you simply $pay to play to get in. Go Trojans.
Social Darwinism means - the weak should and must fail ....just like Darwin proved and the Republicans get aroused by.
College for students is now a safe space, an extended gap 4 years with a rock climbing wall and psychiatric accommodations....more time to take tests. God forbid any intellectual challenges. This is called retention.
Then spoiler alert they /the indoctrinated kids move back into your basement/garage with no skills but they are "woke" and resist the dominant culture while running up your credit cards bills. You can't make this stuff up....it's too insane. However - the good students still win.
2
@David I agree. I wish this industry would just be honest about the fact that they are businesses like any others. There is a huge incongruence between how higher education presents itself and their actual business practices. We are a capitalist country, why pretend education is somehow above this? Its students who need to flip the script on this narrative.
Income inequality strikes again.
If the focus is just on "elite" colleges, then this study might have merit, but I know -- from personal experience as a student and a professor -- that the public universities with which I have experience do not operate in the general ways described here.
1
A disappointing column. Who's "we"?Mr. Bruni mentions Princeton, Middlebury, Penn, and Yale and private for profit institutions before mentioning any public colleges. These colleges seem to be the only ones that fit Mr. Bruni's definition of "we". However, the most elite institutions and the for profits represent only a small slice of the higher education opportunities available to American students. There are hundreds of strong public colleges and many private colleges hungry for students and eager to help them succeed. Nearly every American newspaper writes about and unrepresentative strand of colleges and universities (the most exclusive or the most greedy) and neglects the remarkable value that can be found at many institutions of higher education. College is an affirming and great experience for most students.
4
What's needed rather than more college graduates is actually more technical/vocational training and apprenticeships. The stigma that goes with not having a uni degree - that a degree makes you worth more as a human being - simply isn't accurate. The fabric of society is supported by manual skilled workers. Of course, STEM - engineering in particular - is a part of that. But some degree courses really don't prepare people for the big wide world, which seems criminal given the levels of debt they produce.
This phenomenon of pushing everyone through college because it will "improve their lives" is highly irresponsible. Unless someone is passionate about their subject enough to make them a productive member of society using their degree, and able to pay off their debt, it seems damaging to both the social and economic wellbeing of average families, let alone a decline in competency in the skills vital to any nation's infrastructure.
7
I keep telling kids I see to learn a trade
I was the first of my family to attend college in the 60’s - I did not want the big school experience and opted for a small liberal arts college. Three degrees later and a wealth of experience and a great career in academia remember this - classes in big schools are taught by grad students or part time instructors. Look before you pay!
4
While I appreciate the fact that Mr. Bruni writes about the plight of higher education in the US, it is difficult if not impossible to make sweeping generalizations about colleges and universities.
I teach at a small college, based in the liberal arts but with many programs to accredit students as nurses, etc. It is not prestigious but is embedded in the community. Our graduates get jobs and some do very well financially. All our students are required to philosophy and delve into the liberal arts. Some take ethics.
A high proportion of our students are first generation. Thanks to very uneven high schools, we are forced to learn how to teach critical reading, since the students don't learn it in high school. Many come from environments where reading is not encouraged or praised. That is, many do not have launching pads.
I have worked as a faculty member at some elite schools here in the States and abroad. Yet I am happy to say that our students are the most respectful and courteous that I have ever seen. What they lack in academic skills they make up in human-ness.
These small institutions deserve the same respect and support that elite colleges do. I invite Mr. Bruni to learn more about them.
4
The "branding" effort for selective schools has created enormous distortion in the admissions process. Higher education is generally uniform at the undergraduate level. Somehow students and their parents have been sold a false bill of goods: that attending an "elite" school is some kind of golden ticket to success, and attending a school ten slots lower on some absurd ranking system means failure.
After ten years, no one cares where a person went to undergraduate school. They only care what one has achieved by that point. A person who has done nothing by their 30s but continues to "name drop" their "elite" undergraduate school is a ridiculous and pitiable figure.
147
@William O, Beeman
Well, it would be nice if it were true, but people do indeed care, after ten years, where someone went to school. Because the upper echelons of American society are full of people who went to the same schools, and, like any other group, they are more comfortable around people just like them.....is this good? No. But it's reality.
147
@William O, Beeman
"Higher education is generally uniform at the undergraduate level."
I'm sorry, but this is simply not true. The quality of education differs tremendously at the undergraduate level. Some schools have hundreds of students in an introduction Organic Chemistry class, for instance, and the only grades and requirements for the course are passing two easy multiple choice exams (graded with giant curves) and a couple of problem sets graded by TAs. The sad reality is that schools with smaller classes and more rigorous academics are better schools, but most Americans can't afford to send their children to them.
40
@Concerned Mother. So you have a choice: have your kid waste their childhood stressed out for a slim chance at getting into an elite college or go to a less prestigious school and prove themselves after the fact. The market is getting tougher for those getting by on a school name and connections. At some point you need to be able to produce
15
Having college and vocational counselors available to all students is important. Specifically commenting on Kim, one wonders why she didn't aim for NC State or the UNC campuses in Asheville, Charlotte, and Greensboro. All provide quality educations at a very low in-state cost. A semi-elite private college might have given her a better financial aid package than Clemson. She should be in college now.
1
1779
Thomas Jefferson proposes a two-track educational system, with different tracks in his words for "the laboring and the learned." Scholarship would allow a very few of the laboring class to advance, Jefferson says, by "raking a few geniuses from the rubbish."
And here is where the current much needed secondary education system lives. Not only does wealth offer power, it now offers the freedom of choice and opportunity to the few.
1
One interesting point only touched upon briefly is the sad story of students lured to for-profit colleges, which to me seem all promise with little delivery. To see these poor students toil for a degree that is almost worthless despite their paying and borrowing exorbitant amounts of money is to see a sad story of corporations filled with greedy players representing the worst of American education.
2
The specific stacked deck of American higher education is typical of the general stacked deck the meritocrats at the top of the American pyramid have created to guarantee their own kids don't fall by making it harder for others to rise. The Greatest Generation did the opposite. They opened up the Ivies and the rest to affirmative action in the Sixties, hoping to much better level the playing field of American life. As usual, the Greatest Generation thought in terms of justice and the greater good for society as a whole vs. the narcissistic focus on self and family of the Boomers who took control of America after them, and made America worse on almost every front, except for tech and medical innovation, and even those fields have led to greater and greater inequality in which the winners take all and the vast majority of losers get neither jobs nor the miracle drugs the price-gouging Boomers make it impossible for them to afford.
1
It’s always been hard for low income students . Now when many graduate they are told they have no work experience and should do internships without pay. Watch out for the con of college. Study what produces income. Not everyone can afford to graduate with a liberal arts degree and not get a job. NYU is a very wealthy school that gives very little in financial aid. They love to take students from abroad that pay full tuition. Find a school that won’t make you go broke and stay positive. Don’t study journalism for only the connected get jobs. Cuomo, Anderson Cooper all have past relatives of success. Fox News is a joke. Sixty Minutes is impossible to get a job with. So basically get through your undergraduate years without debt and go for it in graduate school if necessary.
1
Talented bright students do not have to go to an Ivy League school. And high school graduates do not have to go to a very expensive college. They will survive and do very well in life.
I was excruciatingly poor in the mid 1970's at Duke University, which must be one of the most obnoxious institutions of higher learning in the south. The struggle of a car that barely ran, one for which I could not afford gas anyway, while other students complained about inheriting a Mercedes from dad, was intolerable. My grant money each semester was late, so I "dated" students and professors in order to get a free meal. Once I even went on a date with another student who unbeknownst to me, took me out thinking I could pay for the meal. So we both ate and neither had money to pay. I entered Duke a Marxist and graduated a conservative. In all honesty, my education there was worthless. Duke grads are despised throughout the South as arrogant nouveau riche Harvard rejects, so any benefits I hoped for did not materialize. Fortunately after decades, I landed on my feet and finally enjoyed success, but an "elite" education took me years to unlearn. Duke continues to solicit me for donations and they beg harder than a man in the street with a squeegee. They turn out more snowflakes than a blizzard and I have to ask was it worth it? No.
1
We Americans have a love/hate relationship with higher education. We want our children to go to college--but we don't want them to become any SMARTER than we are.
My father was a prime example. On the one hand, he was proud that I was going to a major university. (He had barely finished high school.) On the other hand, he never missed a change to comment, "What kind of nonsense are they teaching you at that school?" (Note: I cleaned up that comment for publication purposes.)
Our children are scared of going to college, and we're afraid of what college will do to them. It will CHANGE the way they think, what they believe...and how they see US. Sooner or later, our children have a MAJOR disagreement with us (politics, religion, economics, whatever), and it changes our relationship with them FOREVER. And we don't know how to handle it, because deep down we don't want our children to be different from us. We want them to BECOME us, version 2.0. And of course, they don't want that.
We want our children to move up the economic ladder. Unfortunately, the super-wealthy don't want that. College is expensive because the 1%ers want to take this country back a century or more, to a time when college was the domain of rich, white young MEN from families of "good breeding." They don't want "the rabble" (i.e., the rest of us) going to college, because college is a signifier of white privilege. The rich don't want educated citizens. They want obedient workers--PEASANTS.
2
Very important, thank you. Three things. No, four. I recall Bill Clinton early in the 90s saying we needed to make sure every American could, or maybe it was did, go to college--certainly the implication was that college was always and everywhere the thing to do. It was dumb then, and it's dumb now. And I say that with the absolute conviction that some of the smartest, wisest, and happiest people I've known did not go to college.
It's striking that only 35% have four-year college degrees, considering the extant narrative that college is necessary for success; think about the stigma that two-thirds of our people carry as a result.
Keep in mind that there has been a similar betrayal and immiseration of those aspiring to teach college. It was once a noble and frequently satisfying occupation, but the modern business of college results in a tiny few making it into coveted tenure spots (and often working themselves to the bone or into an awful mental state to get there) and the great majority also working themselves to the bone for terrible pay as adjuncts. I think we can assume this has contributed to lower quality teaching and advising for the students discussed here.
As for the for-profit diploma mills and their close-cousin low-value programs hyped by "respectable" institutions: good Lord.
Lastly, there are still an awful lot of wonderful people, teachers and students alike, doing fantastic work in our college system; may they get the support they need.
2
Still pushing the "more graduates, more students" line. That's the thing about scams, you need more and more suckers.
The solution, cruel to be sure, is to cut the college intake drastically. Flunking out 50% of students is the cruelty, but passing them on a nod and a wink would be no relief. Better that college be for those who have the ability to succeed at it.
Education for adulthood is the province of high schools, who instead see themselves as pipelines into the college scam, complete with "encouragement" from those with financial and political interests in seeing the scam grow.
1
It's really the same old story: the profit motive drives every single thing in the great world of late capitalism. Debt? Who cares, as long as someone makes money off you. Lose your house and life savings? Your fault for letting those banks and college admissions officers talk you into something. I pray that young people can save this country from itself.
not your usual outstanding work mr. Bruni .
firstly 25% of people in our country still drop out of High School.
second , the competition to get accepted into an elite university is nothing new. at least now some people of color and other underrepresented groups have a better chance of getting in.
third 1.6 trillion dollars in debt divided by 44 million people is around $37,000 each, barely the price of a new car.
I didn't go to college . I'm in the trades. I've paid off 3 new cars in my life , though I didn't buy the first one til I was nearly 50.
hardly a crippling debt burden. you just need to delay some things until your 30 and establish your career . this is what I think you glossed over. everyone wants everything right now. well that's unrealistic.
ive 2 kids in college. sent them to Waldorf school. they didn't have much stress applying and getting accepted into excellent school, for them . the competitive circumstance surrounding elite education is garbage. and many of the people caught up in it turn out to be garbage when they graduate.
good riddance
1
I am quite amazed at the criticism being leveled at our colleges and universities. University is not a VoTech, and people have to start realizing that. If all you want is a job, then go to trade school and become a plumber or an electrician. Those are fine jobs. But if you want to be a critical thinker, learn from some amazing people, and gain an experience that you will carry with you for the rest of your life, whether you become a plumber or a nuclear physicist, then get a university education. There is no substitute, and if you don't have it, you can not reach that level of critical thought necessary for a truly enlightened life.
7
These days many high schools inflate families' sense of their children's accomplishments and then, when faced with the hard reality of colleges that have no such part in the game, students bear the brunt of this malfeasance.
2
Mr. Bruni's and Mr. Tough's fundamental thesis is flawed. "At its best" college should NOT be a ladder to higher earnings, but an experience that teaches our future leaders and thinkers and artists how to think critically and do productive work to serve society. Tying it to "higher earnings" and "economic security" is a dangerous perversion that has left us where we are now - where it is common for institutions of 'higher' learning to teach remedial classes in arithmetic and grammar. Come on! That is not, or rather, should not be "college." As for the student loan debacle - more effective laws to reduce
2
One central element of the higher ed landscape that no one outside of academia seems to want to discuss: the fact that by some estimates as much as 60 per cent of university faculty are contingent, paid between 2-6K per course, dependent on enrollment, no benefits, no job security, and often no offices in which to meet students outside of class. At the same time, I periodically hear rants to the effect that college costs are through the roof because of professors' salaries--and then the snarly little conclusion here about some professors deciding that they really want to teach, after all. It would be so nice if the Great Mandarins of Higher Ed at the Times op ed department actually knew anything about higher ed and what goes on on campuses, instead of just parroting whatever new book publishers send to them n hopes of grabbing some publicity.
3
Gosh, after lowering the standards of both acceptance and performance in higher education for various reasons, Poof!, we have problems.
WHO would have thought!?
1
Higher academic standards for admission and retention and free public college tuition for all.
1
Our higher education system has become almost totally dysfunctional. It has gotten to the point where the system is severely hurting the people it should be helping, both students and parents. f I were college age today, I would leave the United States, get a degree elsewhere (Canada? Australia? New Zealand? A non-English speaking European country?) and live (permanently) abroad.
When the United States has an education system that resembles South Korea, with all its inhuman competition and high suicide rates, it's time to bail out.
2
Can there be a better argument for electing Senator Warren.
Not only have scam artists meritocrats destroyed education, but are adjudication who gets into what school. For example, Edward Blum has made it his life quest to destroy “affirmative action” while using Asian students. The Taliban and Isis are not the only enemies of the state.
Meritocrats have been gaming the higher education system for too long, eg Jared Kushner’s admission to Harvard and NYU Law School with the help of family git’s to the schools. So, not surprising the quality of meritocratic graduates have given us the destruction of US industries through offshoring or vulture capitalism - buy a company and dismember it for profit
Because everything is about money higher education now is an industry. College and university presidents are compensated o like private sector CEOs who have to deliver financial results, one reason for the tuition increase every year.
There’s no need to know the book’s ending. We live it.
2
Frank:
Try reading Joseph Aoun’s book “Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the age of Artificial Intelligence”. He makes a compelling case for teaching relevant, critical/creative thinking skills in an age when most repetitive lower level tasks will be automated. This approach makes the case for the vocational, skills based education needed for the information economy. He charts a path for the non-elite education as the backbone of information industry. If the the path to the middle was formerly a manufacturing job, the path today is creatively computational, with a hefty side of convergence engineering.
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/robot-proof
1
The NY Times continues to be obsessed with a small number of elite colleges. The fact is that most colleges in the US admit nearly all applicants, and anyone who is interested in studying and making some sort of effort can be successful.
It is also true that the vast majority of people could learn all they need to know in high school, if the high schools actually were to teach what they purport to teach. However, huge numbers of young people emerge from high school as semi-literates who will have a difficult time either getting a job or managing to get through college.
3
The system isn’t flawed, the people using it are. You are contributing to the hysteria by blaming the system and not the people who are completely abusing it. How about critically evaluating the choices, behaviors, and thought patterns of the students who are taking out loans they cannot payback? Everyone shouldn’t go to college unless we somehow live in a magical alternate universe where every job requires a college degree, and even then, I’m sure people could find a way to self-learn the required skills for a job without ever attending a single class, so that should blow a gaping hole through that nonsense.
You know why you are fighting an uphill battle that you will always lose no matter how much you wish it wasn’t so? Because talent isn’t distributed fairly. Privilege extends way beyond money and capital, it is embedded in our genes. We can still treat everyone with dignity, whether they have an IQ of 70 or 170, but not until the “send everyone to college” advocates relax and start striving for a more realistic economy.
3
It appears that much has changed since Jacques Steinberg published The Gatekeepers in 2002
Jesus, you think getting into College is hard, try getting your first, real career track job! No one wants to hire you without experience, which can only be obtained by getting hired.
Or worse yet, try getting a new job after you've been laid off and you're 45 or older.
Interviews are brutal, and you never get feedback; hiring is often at least a little bit arbitrary, relying on gut feelings, your appearance and demeanor, and other superficiality.
Getting to college is the easy part.
3
It's end stage capitalism man, not the colleges... Higher education is just shy of sharecropping. The economic project of the US is over, the whole world knows it - everyone but us.
College? When did we as a country become so cruel. It is everywhere from putting children in cages to destroying our public lands to taking away school lunches. It staggers me at times. This is no longer the country I was taught to love and cherish. It shames me now.
The Educational Industrial complex puts the kids of the upper 5 percent into a network of privilege unrelated to their intellect or accomplishments
Look at social mobility in the USA. A disgrace. Elite education and wealth buys you into a social network the other 90 percent of students have no access to.
College presidents and professors extract profit and what outcomes do they deliver?
Monumental piles of student debt.
The business model in education is about profit and not education.
Who pays for an economics professor at Harvard who makes $650,000 a year and probably teaches 1 class a semester?
Look at the adjuncts who now teach half the classes at universities.
Think about it
The Military Industrial Complex
The Political Industrial Complex
The Medical Industrial Complex
The Religious Industrial Complex
The Educational Industrial Complex
The Plutocratic Economic Complex
What else is left?
Massive inequality, cynicism, student debt and Trump
Oh...I was a tenured university professor and I saw the belly of the educational beast!
Vietnam Vet
1
There is little left to like about the Capitalist States of America. Even college, the last bastion of Democratic cultural and educational enrichment, is starting to feel like a rigged scam.
College turned cruel at the same time America turned cruel: 1980.
2
I think college went bad on us concomitantly with our social fabric going down the tubes. It's all related to the widening income inequality gap. Smart kids, but poor, don't get the educations they deserve, and not so bright ones, but wealthy, get an education they maybe can't make great use of. The losers are all of us. Sadly, it really shows up in graduate and professional schools; now you get some young people who really shouldn't be there and the really bright ones are pretty darned gun shy re: more debt. So, do you want to have a really smart doctor attending you, or what?
Universities plundering the wealth of the middle class turning us into indentured servants.
One thing that has happened is admissions have gotten really random.
Based on hooks and diversity quotas and athletics and legacies... it is skewing things in all directions except smarts.
At this point hiring graduates out of the top schools, you never really know what you are getting.
1
This entire country is monstrously cruel. We can either get used to it or change it. Our choice.
1
We live in the your on your own (YOYO) country. That's by design by people who hate government, unless it's social security and Medicare.
The emphasis on Ivy is foolish. School is what you make of it, like most things in life, and there’s no point in going gazillions in debt for a “better” piece of paper. Just showing up as a critically thinking adult who can ask intelligent questions will put a kid miles in front of a lot of their peers.
I’m more concerned that Our Kids are safe..”we heard more gunfire outside last night, Mom, so we stayed in..”
1
Colleges have not turned so cruel. Parents and guidance counselors have. Their expectations and their standards are. It would be lovely, just lovely, if a poor student going to Harvard did not feel like one on the outside looking in. But it would be even lovelier if parents and guidance counselor ascertained that such a student was suited to such an environment and, if not, better off at a less prestigious college with more students like him or her.
What I think is cruel is this pundit's belief that college is for career. Some adolescents may want to go to school to get job training, but most would like the chance to explore fields more varied than high school allows. Government's withdrawal of financial support for higher education makes the costs of college difficult, it not impossible, for students or their parents to bear without a premature plan to pay off the debt. We need to realize that a private education is a public benefit and, therefore, something for which government should pay.
1
Actually, college ain’t what it used to be. Many occupations that once offered safety and consistency are about to be replaced by algorithms. Accounting for example. If you want a decent wage and consistency, try the trades: construction, health care, etc. If you want bang for your buck, try junior college. If you want massive debt and occupational uncertainty and then absolutely go to a big expensive university. Rah, rah, rah...
1
Community Colleges and Trade Schools are the logical competitors to the highly priced advanced institutions hustling their business to young and/or curious minds. They seem most capable of maximizing the results of all your costs. You should look askance at all high cost but ultimately low worth colleges. This is if you are looking for a results oriented conclusion to time spent pursing that degree.
Because make no mistake about it. Despite all that's promulgated in our society about how an advanced education is a key to enlightenment - ummm...so to speak - it is first and foremost a business. Colleges are selling a somewhat dubious product (in terms of actual results experienced by many a customer), and you are the grist for their mills.
So as a consumer (of it) you need to do your due diligence and understand your financial limitations. Do not allow yourself to be blinded by the advertising and, yes, propaganda, of those colleges seeking your dollar. Ignore the poofy fluff of how what they proffer benefits you; use a jaundiced and critical eye in your decision making and do that which is best for you...
College is supposed to be some of the best time you will ever have in your life. Do not allow it to indenture you for most of the remainder of it. Just some thoughts worth about that much.
John~
American Net'Zen
60
@John. A major newspaper in our southern state published a supplement detailing requirements of state public and private colleges. What a shock it was to see that several private colleges (with frequent scholarships) accept students whose scores indicate they answered less than half of the questions correctly—15 or 16 out of 30+ ACT scores.
I shouldn’t have been surprised at such ‘warehousing’ since I’d seen a small private college library where the several students were tossing airplanes and spitballs at each other and joking for over an hour. Perhaps we need some private colleges that focus on less academic programs, allowing students to have a college experience without wasting their time and money.
3
@John A massive issue for young people is that they will be inescapably linked to the people with whom they build relationships during that formative 18-25 age. I just saw something elsewhere today that discussed how the big decline in divorce rate is actually attributable to decline in marriage rates in the 18-30 demographic. If you think college students, surrounded by a cornucopia of individuals rich in intellectual ability, athletic prowess, and "life experience" are having trouble finding "Mr/Miss Right", imagine what it's like if you make the economically rational choice and decided to become an plumber's apprentice, or even go to Community College for 2 years and transfer to a 4 year school. Not good.
1
@John
You're largely correct, and as part of due diligence parents and *government* should look carefully at the results of community colleges. While there are some exceptional community colleges, many have track records that are *worse* for the students than never attending CC at all. California has a great CC system that is designed fo help students transfer into the elite UC track. Good on them! However the vast majority of CCs are considered "doing well" if they have a 14% - 16% graduation rate over THREE years. Many have nearly zero students graduating. Most people in college attend community colleges. Most people attending CCs are low income. This means that most people attending colleges are almost better off *not* attending CCs because they 1) will not graduate and they 2) will have debt. Fortunately in NYC there's a new CC called Guttman that's working to change how CCs operate through many innovations. Started in 2012 I think through a Bloomberg initiative, it boasts a 50% graduation rate.
4
I think we need to refine our message to high school students and their families about post-secondary education. For a number of years, the message has been "you need a four-year degree (at least), preferably from an "elite" school, if you want to have a chance at economic success."
We have under-sold the value of two-year degrees from community/junior colleges, we have under-sold the value of training in the skilled trades, and we have under-sold the value of four-year degrees from "good," but not "elite" public universities. There are many different paths to a successful career, but we have focused almost exclusively on one.
At the same time, universities are trying to achieve greater diversity on campus. Whether it's racial/ethnic diversity, or geographic diversity, or socio-economic diversity, this is going to lead to some students feeling that they don't "fit in." This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the students who are in that position need to be prepared for it, and not all will be able to handle the situation.
I don't know that college has become more "cruel," but the way we have sold post-secondary education to young people in this country has pushed a lot of them into situations that probably seem cruel.
4
College is a soul crushing experience of anxiety, depression, social whiplash, and burdensome expectation. Your future is ripe with anticipation. If you can just survive this, the world is your oyster. Students are inevitably disappointed.
This is all true. However, I take issue with this statement:
"In the current era of technology and automation, college is the new high school..."
This is not true. I experience recent college graduates daily who don't know one thing about technology. They know how to use a computer. Email is standard. You ask them to open an Excel spread sheet or use Adobe though? Nothing. I honestly don't even know how to use the phones at work. If you left me a voicemail, I wouldn't get it.
College is not a technical training ground for a real world work environment. It's not meant to be. You shouldn't treat it as such. Please lower your expectations.
The simple fact is that most American HS students just won’t make it academically at four year schools. We need to stop thinking it’s for everyone, and start investing in other routes to careers.
7
@VIKTOR Yes, you just identified another related and perhaps more important issue: the decline of academic rigor and preparation at the K-12 level. As always, wealthier school districts can offer better programs and opportunities, but overall, academics have been slipping for our kids for years.
2
This is a consequence of Bill Clinton's drive to make every high school graduate go to a four year college. It was a disastrous decision as we slighted technical school and vocations, and now we have students with large student loans ( caused primarily by the liberalization of federal loan availability) with degrees in areas that will most likely never allow them to earn wages sufficient to pay off the debt.
Had they become carpenters, electricians, plumbers or welders and gone to a two year college to learn finance, accounting and basic business skills they would be earning $100,000 and up and never face unemployment assuming they had competent skills!
1
My daughter went to the University of Chicago for her bachelors and Harvard for her masters and PhD. She wanted an academic career with a bit of security, hoping not to join the thousands of excellent academics who must teach adjunct, have no benefits, have no job security. She was fortunate to obtain a tenure-track assistant professorship at a very highly regarded liberal arts school this past year.
Did we "push" her to go to these schools? Absolutely not. But she understood that getting these same degrees at a state university would have limited her professional options. We paid her way through UChicago. She put herself through school at Harvard while working toward her PhD, with a combination of fellowships, grants and teaching assignments.
She is starting the kind of career that is sadly, now beyond the reach of many young people who want to pursue academia for their careers.
Now, we were extremely fortunate to be able to pay her way at UChicago. In neither institution did she get any "breaks" as a legacy student (she is not) or from any affirmative action programs. Our family is squarely middle class. We had only one child and lived frugally over the years to help her go to college.
Do we brag about her accomplishments, her attendance at an Ivy? Only with family. My purpose in commenting here is that these elite schools open doors for many young people, and provide opportunities they'd never see graduating from a state school. Is this fair? No. Is it reality? Yes.
270
@Clarice
It is certainly true that contingent faculty ranks are growing nationally, but we should be clear that this is not a major trend at the top school.
9
@Jackson Curtis Congrats to your daughter, but there are still people getting tenure-track jobs coming from R1 state schools: CUNY Graduate Center, University of Pittsburgh, Penn State University, University of Virginia continue to place PhDs, whereas this year Columbia University's Department of English placed zero PhD students in tenure-track jobs.
101
@Clarice Ironically perhaps, the people with the power to demand more be spent on faculty are those funding their own underfunded education -- the undergraduates motivated by fear to simply get in (and to get the degree).
Undergraduate protests against tuition increases have grown, but in many cases, these students still see their professors (or adjunct professors) as the ones responsible for these exorbitant costs. Few of them realize that their money is funding the administrative class who see it as their duty to spend as little on actual educators as possible.
Faculty are not blameless either as they also hold the power to protect the vulnerable among them.
Anyhow, as long as tax payers insist on paying less into our public education system, naturally the wealthy will prevail at elite private schools.
Undergraduates, faculty, and the tax-paying public need to work together to put an end to this system that has been appropriated by the business class.
70
I feel sorry for today's kids going through so much for college. Why they think they have to get into the Ivy League or their lives will be over is a mystery. I went to a state school, starting out in a branch campus that was in my hometown. I don't remember any problem with acceptance. I think I just filled out some paperwork and I was in. This was in the 70's, though. I didn't go to college with any idea of it getting me a good job. That was never my goal. My parents always felt that college broadened your opportunities, exposed you to new ideas and outlooks, and just continued on with the education that high school didn't finish. And, that's how I looked at it. I was exposed to ideas and theories that were new and exciting to me, literature that opened my eyes and heart and helped me to understand people. I remember my teachers being warm and caring and dedicated to sharing their knowledge with a bunch of unformed teenagers. College really gave me a chance to grow. I suppose all these years later I can look back and say my B.A. also increased my chances for better jobs, although I never really had a specific career. I sort of jumped around from industry to industry. So, my education didn't prepare me for anything specific. But, that doesn't mean it wasn't worthwhile. It saddens me that we have become such an anti-college society and that students think their choice can only be an expensive private school.
7
The paradox is that as elite universities and colleges have increased outreach and emphasized seeking diverse classes, they extend many more people a shot at admission... who then are embittered and disappointed when they do not gain a place. The reality is that most colleges and universities around our huge country have seats open to the average applicant, and most provide an excellent education to those who actually seek it and work for it. The oversupply of Ph.D.s from the 1970s-1990s means that there are truly excellent faculty everywhere.
Since the Reagan era the states have drastically cut their investment in their state universities. Reversing this trend alone would go a long way toward easing the anxieties of the families seeking higher education for their average high school graduate. Ironically, the mania to cut spending on higher education in the states has exacerbated the cutthroat competition to get into the best-funded elite private universities: aspiring students see that they won't get adequate financial help to attend the state universities, which anyway may have cut services and courses--and naturally they flock to apply to the very limited seats at private institutions.
I wonder why middle class families, and editorialists like Frank Bruni, are not uniting to put pressure on their state legislatures to reverse the pernicious defunding trend of recent decades, and generously support our excellent state colleges and universities.
4
College used to be a gateway to a career with a good shot at a secure, middle-class future. Now, that function has been transferred to graduate school, and college is just a place to warehouse young people to delay their entry into an ever-diminishing labor market made up of low-paying, benefits-barren, insecure, dead-end jobs, while saddling them with soul-crushing student debt.
On the upside, America still has the most billionaires.
4
When did college turn so cruel? About the time colleges were founded. Privilege, parental pressure and class warfare are something new? Please.
2
What this article does not mention is the cause of this unfortunate elitist culture of branding that started in the 1980s: an increase in higher education administrators. Administrators in colleges and universities decrease the essential component of an education: faculty. These administrators view students as customers. And to attract the best customers it is important to offer amenities like luxury gyms and student residences and centers. Moreover, these "business" administrators, have dubious duties and pay themselves high salaries. What is most deplorable is not only that their contribution to the institutions is questionable, but that they really don't care about education or the students, nor about those professors they hate that have summers "off." To punish these professors, they lower their salaries, take away benefits, and increase requirements for those few who are tenure-track by demanding they engage in administrative and community duties besides the publication requirement, conference attendance, and excellent student evaluations. The administrators only interest is the prestige of working in a university by doing nothing while avoiding the most difficult job in an institution of higher learning: putting up with the disrespectful students. Ask them. The administrators answer is always the same: "oh no, there's no way I'm going to teach." And parents support the brand not just for a future career with connections, but for the opportunity to marry into the 1%.
6
Michael Katz’s “The Irony of Early School Reform” is an old book that worth revisiting. In it Katz persuasively argues that formal education in America has historically served the purpose of managing the workforce. High Schools were created in part to avoid the conflicts that would arise if teens started competing with older workers for too few jobs. At the end of WW2, The GI Bill offered returning veterans access to higher education while the country transitioned to a peacetime economy. We needed to delay the entry of returning vets into the workforce. We can ask ourselves if higher education doesn’t serve a similar social purpose today?
Our current perspective on education emphasizes individual goals and achievements, but higher education also helps us control the labor market. When we see it from that perspective, it’s much easier to make the case that a greater share of the cost of higher education should be born by the public because flooding the labor market with 20 year olds would have devastating social and economic consequences. Most objections to shifting some of the cost of higher education to taxpayers derive from a view of education as singularly beneficial to the student. An historical perspective suggests we should support higher education because it benefits us all.
55
And it seems, at a minimum, making community college free would be a great help to many.
6
@KW everyone has to pay taxes to support the community college in their district, but I have no idea what went wrong along the way. I paid $10 a credit hour in the early 80s when they first started and was able to afford that working part time at Dairy Queen making minimum wage.
@Marie
Couldn't say what went wrong in St.Louis, but in CT, what happened is that the percentage of support of the state government went down and down and down.... Support used to be about 60% of the cost of running a college, now its closer to 20%. And so tuition and fees went up and fewer full time faculty were hired and so forth and so on as the cost was shifted
6
College has become a way of achieving status not an education. To think that Princeton and University of PA, both ivy league schools, are the only viable way to reach a higher rung on the ladder is indeed sad. I hope the student been pressured into going to Yale instead of Middlebury stands up for what she wants and says to heck with my parents who want to brag to their friends and bask in the glow of being an ivy parent. I went to college in a different time without status and financial pressure and truly enjoyed my education.
6
Competition = cruelty. Ugh. Even in the 1970s (when I was an undergrad), there were some students and parents who were obsessed with "beating" everyone else, getting into med school or becoming part of the ruling class. It doesn't have to be that way. Most of my classmates were just there to learn and find a useful career, and we were all happy to work together so that everyone in the class would get through the toughest topics (advanced calculus, modern physics, computer operating systems were the tough classes for me). A university is supposed to be a "community of learners," not a prison camp.
5
Added to all the tension, cost, and uncertainty, there is growing the AI/automation glow on the horizon. So after a difficult experience at the four year college, the less than brilliant graduates will be facing a new capitalism twist: maximize AI to reduce, and/or eliminate, human skill level requirements, and the corresponding better paying jobs.
I was just reading a book on the computerization of weather forecasting and forecast distribution. One example of labor saving was that it takes thirteen meteorologists to staff a particular global fully automated system and 2500 to do it the conventional way.
3
College today has been organized by and for todays elites who were shaken by the independence and challenges from students in the 60's.
Now the pecking order is everything. And every year US News reminds us where we fall in this race to the top. By design, most kids loose that race.
But this is exactly what our business oriented, finance driven increasingly authoritarian society wants. Like any big corporation college now teaches students to find their niche, don't challenge authority and accept their fate.
And if this basic design weren't enough, kids are now saddled with so much debt that straying from the path is an act of financial suicide.
College was once important because it provided an educated and civically engaged workforce, the future leaders of tomorrow. In reality it has become the means to serve those leaders, not to become them and certainly not to replace them.
This needs to change and the focus of change should be on our state colleges and universities, not the elite schools. Our state systems still educate the vast majority of young people.
Yet we know more about the latest hiring flap at Yale than we do about the typical experience of kids in our state system.
The beginning of needed change must be debt relief. College should be, and one was affordable. But that was before presidents Bush, Obama and Trump collectively cut 15 trillion dollars in taxes, 85% of it for the wealthiest in society.
It's time that money returned to cover college debt.
6
There is no question that college costs too much, but that is another and highly important matter. However, no one is going to have sympathy for kids who have to work hard to get into college and then have to work hard once they get there. Working hard is stressful. Its also rewarding. Furthermore, there are very few successful people who did not, and do not work hard, no matter how privileged their backgrounds are. I would argue that the best skills one learns in college are how to learn, how to work hard, and how to meet other peoples expectations. These are valuable skills in any field of life.
Another major problem with college is a general lack of planning for later life. I find that students (I am a professor) rarely think about where they want to be in 10 or 20 years after college. Furthermore, professors often steer students into fields that provide limited options after graduation. Many liberal arts majors find few job opportunities compared to students who majored in say accounting, business, or computer science. No one really talks to students about how much money they will make or where they will work if they major in Music versus Business. This has been made worse because businesses increasingly look for graduates who majored in business or have technical degrees, and put little value on liberal arts degrees. I mention this not because money is the only goal, but it is important if one expects to pay off loans and move into the middle class.
8
This is an indictment of our society's flight from excellence. I was discouraged from college back in the 70's as a waste for women being educated. Nevertheless, I persisted working full-time, attending community college and University at night for 9 years. The only thing that made my success feasible were the subsidies offered by federal and state dollars which made the process affordable. I left University with no debt.
The only remedy is a renewed commitment to human capital development.
One other thing, students with a goal can endure almost anything. Young people who understand the payoff for the misery of transition will survive and thrive. Without that, it is a pointless exercise.
4
The truth is that college can only do so much for you. And it can certainly ruin you by crippling you with debt you can never pay off or discharge in bankruptcy. The most important thing, I think, is the dedication, time, and perseverance that you put into whatever you strongly feel will make you a success, whatever your definition of that term may me. A lot of very successful people didn’t graduate from college: JD Rockefeller Sr, Andrew Carnegie, Bill Gates, just to name a few. I think I’ll make a note of this comment and read it to my two sons, who are in high school. They get straight As and 100/99 percent on all standardized tests. The oldest one, as a sophomore, received letters inviting him to visit nearly every college in the US. But I’m afraid they may not understand the big picture.
2
Excellent column. Sad but true on all counts. I truly feel for young people today.
We need a new CCC.
For decades, I have favored required mandatory national service for 2 years, served between the ages of 18 and 30.. This service would allow young people time to think about their future and at the same time serve their country in a variety of ways. It would also teach them new skills, taking direction from others who aren't their parents being one of those new skills.
Those who completed such service would have two years of higher education free.
CCC structures and trails still exist out here in Oregon. I can't say that about a lot of other buildings built back then.
6
The real question is "When did everything become so cruel?" College (yes, the new High School) is a crucible for kids who are porous and open, who so readily absorb the terrors (spoken or not) and vanities of the water we swim in. And you're right, for many, going to college isn't necessarily a step up in the world, but insurance against drowning. In this fabric of free fall, the cruelties of college admission are but a single thread.
2
The problem is more with employment opportunities for non college graduates. Not everyone is academically inclined or interested but EVERYONE needs a job. Consequently, everyone expects they MUST attend college. Furthermore, the tremendous emphasis to attend a name brand college has emerged since it is a way for employers to distinguish between graduates who have survived academic rigor vs partying.
Finally, the expense of college could be reduced if we eradicated all the excess administrative jobs and fluff. Whoever determined that students need climbing walls and sushi? Whatever happened to cafeteria food and teaching professors instead of Deans for everything?
3
The likes of those who established the U.S. desired a market economy in which the competitive features of instrumental relations - you are useful to me so long as I gain from you and vice-versa - would be tempered by culture - family, religion, education. They did not, by and large, seek a market society in culture is eroded and eventually consumed by the imperialism of market values. In other words, we live in a society where almost everything has been corroded by the cash nexus. Cruelty is part and parcel of this process.
1
I'm a public school teacher who graduated from Bard College, commonly thought of as "elite", in 1974. My last principal, the best principal I ever worked for, graduated from Cal State Los Angeles, a California public university. He made, on retirement, about $135,000 per year, which makes him a financial success even in our current predator society.
College is what you make it. I'm sorry our system is so messed up, but that's what happens in a country that worships money above all else.
9
Circumstances are so much more difficult today for young people. In 1976 I quit my job to go back and finish college at the state university. To commute to school and carry a fifteen-credit load, it cost $492 per semester plus books and gasoline.
For graduate school, in 1978 I got a teaching assistantship, full tuition and fee waiver, and a stipend at another state school. This is fairly common. Married student housing was $140 a month, about $750 today. I earned a master’s degree and was a corporate economist for thirty-three years. It was a huge amount of hard work, but I believe it was easier than what young people face today. Things were so different forty years ago.
But you don’t need to attend an elite school to do well in life. Learn your craft and then work even harder after you graduate. Things will happen.
8
I taught in a few Minnesota colleges for 26 years ending in 2014, 18 of which were at the University of MN. Students there were increasingly obsessed with grades and resume building. As a result many were averse to making even the slightest error. They were actually learning less and less and seemingly having little fun. At the end, unable to understand fully what was happening and completely unable to motivate historic levels of learning, I retired early.
I spent one year at an open enrollment state university. What the students lacked in preparation was partly made up by enthusiasm and appreciation for the opportunity the school provided. They weren’t obsessed with grades and had no fear of making a mistake. What was troubling was that they would end up competing with the folks from high powered schools upon graduation, even though many from the open enrollment school will ultimately make better workers and colleagues.
We can only hope to that students from all schools will be given an opportunity to develop and ultimately learn that their role in the world is to help out.
7
The quote ‘America’s standout schools inspire envy around the world’ just goes to show that even the thoughtful columnist overlooks the views of millions of people in other parts of the world who may not (whisper this quietly) envy the high cost, divisive and mixed quality of a US university education. My father who was a Princeton Math Professor said when he started out teaching there was a wider range of perceived universities and colleges at which one could receive a first rate education but that in his lifetime an unhealthy focus on the merits of an Ivy League education had developed.
6
@ConfusedinLondon Having done my master's at one of the top universities in Europe, the difference is that American degrees (even from flagship state schools) are recognized around the world by employers and foreign universities, but the reverse is not true save for some like Oxbridge and the LSE. And our research is why so many Europeans come to the US for their PhD's or post-doctoral research but not the other way around. You can say that people aren't envious, but American degrees are still held in high esteem around the world instead of only in one's own country.
You can also make the accusation of "mixed quality" anywhere. Look at German universities where professors have little real world work experience and most courses consist of a bored prof reading from slides. No case work, assignments, office hours, anything. Just one test based on rote memorization.
3
You’re spot on. So many interrelated problems. The business model has especially hurt students, faculty and administrators. The students with anxiety suffer the most. Instructors are not trained/prepared to help. Some affluent students contribute to ugliness and not just because they are in fancy cars. Some are so unhappy they take it out on their teachers and others. I had one student of wealth treat me like I was the girl she most wanted to hurt in high school! It was like a scene out of a movie! All because she herself was unhappy. She was overwhelmed even though she once thrived. Instead of taking it out on her parents or the school, she picked on someone else. It’s so sad. So glad she had enough sense to leave. And even if the instructors try to just teach or lighten things up on the curriculum - which some are told to do - they’re called on to be social workers when they themselves are suffering. So are the admins. It’s a scary situation. Enrollments are down. It’ll be interesting to see 20 years from now the percentage of people with degrees and jobs their parents didn’t engineer. Yes, the parents are a huge problem. Helicopter parents will be raising this generation for years and let’s hope the mental health community can help us all.
5
When capitalism takes over, everything becomes cruel. That's the hard, simple truth.
13
All two year community colleges should be made free. Students who want to learn a trade would be able to graduate debt free and students who intend to get a four year degree would only have to pay for two years.
20
I appreciate the arguments and concerns that you address in this piece. But I think there is a bigger problem. Before one decides which college to go to (or even go to college), one needs to assess what the prospects for a rewarding and financially viable job/career afterwards.
Too many colleges are dangling "shiny objects" (beautiful dorm rooms, gourmet cafeterias, state of the art sports facilities, etc.) to lure prospective students to their schools. And of course this raises the cost of the school tuition and room and board, but may have no benefit at all to education. Also schools need to spend more time making sure that there are enough jobs for the graduates. Too many graduates end up in part time jobs living below the poverty level with no benefits because too many people are chasing the same jobs and companies are not hiring permanent employees because they are managing their bottom line and supply and demand for skills.
Prospective college students, parents and schools need to have have serious discussions about this.
6
Quoting from the piece:
"He finds hope, for example, at the University of Texas at Austin, where admissions have been rethought, extra guidance has been provided and a few professors in particular have decided to go back to the beginning, more or less, and pour extra energy into actual teaching."
That extra energy is oil and gas from the west Texas Permian basin.
It's easy for a state school to rethink stuff when it has a $40 billion plus and growing endowment from Permian basin oil and gas production - the largest oil and gas play in the world right now.
5
@Michael Berndtson And let us not forget to mention "Robin Hood" (the state's public school finance system) and the 10% Rule (admittance to a state funded university). Both were originally implemented in circa 1990. They have reeked havoc on Texas education, and are largely responsible for the out-migration of educated talent from the State. The State of Texas, and its economic role in the next few decades, is hanging precipitously on the edge. Largely due to changing demography and, once again, out-migration of wealth.
2
If politicians want to control the cost of colleges, they have the means. They should require all schools who receive federal funds to publish their budgets in a standard way that elucidates, not hides, the relevant information. State schools are required to publish their budgets, but they do it in a way that makes it impossible to tell what fraction goes to tenured or tenure-track professors who teach undergraduates in the class room, what fraction goes to adjuncts who teach in the class room, what fraction goes to tenured track or tenured professors who do not teach undergraduates or graduates in the class room, what fraction goes to tenured and tenure track faculty who have no class room teaching duties at all, what fraction goes to staff who make more than $100,000 per year, what fraction goes to clerical/other low paid staff, what fraction goes to grounds, what fraction... well you get it.
People do respond to shame. Making it easy to shed light on where the money is really going, in categories that potential buyers care about, can be legislated and make it easier to choose wisely and to shame inappropriate spending.
(and we should ask why college is the new high school. Because frankly in a good high school,students get most of the training that modern students get in college. why not just improve the high schools. Is it a way of keeping the young out of the work force?)
11
Yes! College is about an education. It lasts a person a whole life if he is lucky enough to meet teachers and classmates who inspire him to be a life long learner, someone equipped to contribute to the world.
8
After reading this piece, please remember what CUNY is accomplishing with regularity. It offers extensive support for the economically disadvantaged (see its SEEK and ASAP programs). CUNY colleges are routinely among the lowest in debt at graduation and best bang for your buck lists. I also recommend the excellent work by Raj Chetty, also, which shows what an engine for upward mobility many of the CUNY colleges are.
15
Am I the only one who finds this article and the responses a little ludicrous? I understand there are people who are stressed out and struggle with college and acceptance. I thought the military was a lot more stressful, with hazing that did not simply consist of drinking until you were having a good time, and fellow servicemembers dying.
Employers largely don't care which school you went to. Unless you are taking a truly astonishing workload, I found college substantially easier than high school, with ample time between classes. I struggled to get B's in my AP english class only to find that I 4.0'd the college english class I took with no trouble whatsoever, at a very good school. This is only a few years ago.
I think it is less of a matter of difficulty, than perspective of that difficulty. I'm finding that we are challenging people less, and asking less of them, and yet some people still can't make the cut.
It certainly doesn't help that a degree is providing far less reward than it has in the past. The author is absolutely correct on that.
12
Sigh, another hand-wringing article on the unreal world of the tiny fragment of the working class that seeks to join the 1% by attending fancy-name brand research universities.
How about some pieces on reversing the consistent defunding of public higher education since the 1970s? The necessity and possibly new-found political viability of free public higher education?
Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers study or studied in CUNY-- yet not a peep about the ongoing struggle of the union to raise adjunct instructor wages to a "liveable" level. Not a peep about the cancellation of classes unless they can match a crowded rush-hour subway car in student count and comfort.
30
College brand obsession is often parent driven, seeking bragging rights, affirmation that they've "done a good job", mixed with a dose of wanting to do everything possible to give their kid a leg up in an increasingly challenging world. It's become a toxic cocktail. Kids end up pressured not just to get in, but to do "great" since it costs so much, and since their parents have so much riding on it. Parents mortgage their retirements. It's a broken path.
Many of these kids would be better off pursuing a trade school. It is impossible to find hvac and auto technicians, truck drivers, plumbers, etc. They can make very good money with far less debt, and locate virtually any where they want. Time to rethink the advice these kids are given.
12
@Rich
Right on, and HVAC, auto techs, truck drivers, plumbers, etc cannot be outsourced.
Just try to find one, when you really need one, and you get put on the wait list.
By the way, MDs too!
1
The College and Corporate / industry work culture has always been mean. Corporations pay millions a year to have someone paper shuffle and brag at the top while they denigrate and condemn the workers as not doing enough and not working hard enough and not being competitive.
Our United States is a mean and cruel society that requires each to "do it on your own, figure it out for yourself". I survived it OK but it still bothers me.
There is no room for "survival of the fittest in the modern age".
8
@Astralnut It would seem that it’s survival of the richest.
This article seems to mention mostly Ivy League colleges (by way of Tough's work, I'm guessing), and I think that's a big part of the problem. There are many college options in this country, and many of them, not just Ivy's, can lead to successful and stable careers. I work with people who attended all types of colleges from elite liberal arts schools to regional state universities, and we're all doing pretty well professionally. I think the mindset that you have to go to Yale or Harvard to have a good life is a dangerous one.
23
@Drew Ire
Job postings from many "top rated" employers state they want candidates from Ivy League school / Top "rated" programs. Some employers will not even look at candidates unless they attended a select list of schools or in extreme cases are referred by alumni / fraternity / sorority networks. Its not just a black and white issue. You can't dismiss the fact that there is "school discrimination" when it comes to hiring. Maybe that needs to be addressed as well.
6
College “has been the new high school” since the 1980, especially in terms of having to remedially educate the freshman class. Unmentioned in here is the value of two-year associate degrees and smaller state schools (Southwest Texas here in Texas, for example, rather than A&M or UT). Parents need to reset their expectations and pay closer attention to (admittedly overwhelmed) education professionals at their children’s schools. College is not for everyone (and woe to the high school counselor who has to tell a parent that). The young lady who couldn’t afford Clemson, is there no other opportunity in South Carolina? Oh, I can think of one — the University of South Carolina.
I’ve appreciated, Frank, your thoughtful discussion of these issues. But, maybe a focus on how all this student debt is being accrued (students taking out overwhelming loans for a degree from an institution that’s too exclusive that leaves them feeling “on the outside”). I’m even willing to enter a discussion of tax supported “years 13 and 14” after high school at a community college, just to get the “basic credits” done without the pressure of a large institution.
5
So, to assuage Shannon's wounded psyche taxpayers pay to send everyone to college whether or not she can read or is otherwise qualified for college. And whether or not you need a college education to manage a Gap store. And, along the way, colleges dilute the value of their education because the federal government pressures them to graduate more unqualified students. Phooey.
5
I thought the purpose of college in the 21st century was to provide a high-paying royal lifestyle for the kingdoms of the higher-ed administrative class and head coaches, and to a lesser extent, a few star faculty members on each campus, accomplished by ripping-off students and parents and using non-benefited slave wage contracted faculty for the majority of classroom teaching? Every Associate Assistant Dean to the Assistant Associate Vice President of Associate Assistant Provosts knows this.
16
@Cowboy Marine
Shush, we have to blame someone else.
I don't think it's a matter of how cruel colleges are. It's more how mentally fragile - let's go ahead and say weak - our children have become. I'm 46, my parents showed me the path. These days, parents snowplow the path and remove all obstacles. My wife works at a local college, and deals with more parents than students, when it should be the other way around. Most kids aren't ready for college, let alone young adulthood.
12
The idea that choosing and getting into a specific college will determine the course of your life is really nonsense. We have four kids. All went to public school K-12, three went to state universities and paid in-state tuition, one went to the US Naval Academy and paid for college with service to our country. They are all very successful, financially secure and happy.
High school students should consider 2 years of community college with subsequent transfer to their state university, service academies or ROTC scholarships. Leave the Ivy League for wealthy kids whose parents can buy admission for them.
14
Calling for a moratorium on posts trundling out the following:
--Frank Sinatra "I did it my way" suggesting national policy should be based upon a single example
--suggestion that somehow STEM will have enough future capacity to take every graduating college senior
--shaming families by suggesting that somehow thousands of students are blocked from colleges by their family's imprudent decision to buy a television, phone etc
8
The obsession with getting accepted to Ivy-league and other top-shelf private schools is misplaced to my way of thinking. Many people in my generation (baby boomer), including myself, made the conscious decision not to attend highly selective private schools (Columbia, Bowdoin, and Colgate in my case) precisely because the environment seemed so foreign. Instead we went to public universities (Binghamton in my case) and received just as good an education in an more egalitarian environment and a much lower cost (~$15,000 a year in today's dollars, about half of which was paid by a New York State Regent's scholarship).
So, I started this note with the intention of saying "why don't we promote public universities for more of today's students". The trouble is that today's average annual cost of Princeton after financial aid is $15,585 (per US News and World Report) - comparable to my 1970s experience at Binghamton. At Binghamton, though, the average annual cost after financial aid is $32,272 - more than twice as much! And while I can argue that my Binghamton education was as good as any in the Ivy League, it strains credulity to argue that it's worth twice as much.
The challenge, then, is to find a cost-effective means of providing a college education to the growing number of students that want to attend college. It seems likely that the answer is to reduce the cost at public institutions rather than funneling ever more students towards the Ivy League.
13
@Scott Hammer
I think a great part of the problems inherent in our emphasis and obsession with the choices and quality of institutions of higher learning is, exactly, the US New and World Report. Throw in Peterson's and Fiske and you have a trifecta.
I agree on all points, but I will say that top scientists and engineers can still use an education to find better employement and given that graduate schools will pay them over the cost of tuition they usually end with limited debt. However, my advice is the same as it is for everything facing Americans today: Move to Canada. My total tuition for 4 years: $10k (cdn).
3
Dare I say Republicans do not support public education, increased student grants to poor and middle-income students? Too many students who suffer have parents who voted for trump. Go figure. The ladder to upward mobility has been pulled up by trump, the Koch brother and Mitch McConnell. But, it all began with Reagan, but we forget so easily in America.
20
Colleges are a mirror reflection of Wall Street greed, colleges main goal is money, they act as is they care about the students at best 15% of Administrators do the rest is big paychecks, great pensions, and for people to bow down to them as if they are gods. I have one question that is everyone says higher education is out of control and to expensive, I'am sure the grounds keepers and janitors aren't making $150,000 so why?
5
When my grandfather went to school, it went as far as the 8th grade (early 1900s). When my parents went to school, it went as far as the 12th grade. When I went to school, people were starting to realize that a college education was necessary to earn a living if you didn't have a trade. That was 60 years ago. It is long overdue that we increase public education to K-16. As it is, to go on with a career, many fields now require masters degrees. To make college at state supported colleges tuition free is not a gift to students, it is an investment in our country. We were once proud of our educational system. The conservatives in our country have destroyed it. So...
17
The ideal of more college grads as a percentage of population is great, but when the number of college grads approaches 100% of the population the value of a college degree (in dollar terms, anyway) will be nil.
6
From my perch up here in Canada, I have watched in dismay as my American friends with university-bound children pay a small fortune for SAT tutors and college counsellors—and thanked my lucky stars that this madness has by and large bypassed Canada. This is to say nothing of the massive tuition fees these families must somehow pay once the child is enrolled.
Since there is no real culture up here of sending your kids away so they can have the "college experience", my children will likely attend McGill and live at home, drastically reducing the expense of attending university. Annual tuition at McGill for a bachelor of arts and science for provincial residents is currently CAD$ 4,592.57 (and just over CAD$ 7,000 for out of province Canadian residents).
Imagine paying this amount for a top-rate school without all the stress and madness associated with gaining entry.
It's called socialism, and it's pretty awesome.
32
@Styrian
And McGill is one of the best universities in the world, in the same class as many of our Ivy League colleges!!
Interestingly, the costs of going to McGill and "good" colleges/universities in the US was not dissimilar 30 years ago. Why have we strayed?
9
"Many of them enter college academically behind their wealthier peers, who got better K-through-12 educations" is the root cause of the problem. An equal opportunity for an equal quality education no longer exists in this country. On the other hand, college should be difficult and even 35% is high. What is needed is a restructuring of education. It is not just college but all types of post secondary education that needs to be strengthened including apprenticeships, technical schools, etc. Making college the new high school diminishes college.
15
If only "35 percent of Americans 25 years or older have earned a four year degree," that is just about how it should be. The drumbeat to make a BA more accessible sounds pleasingly democratic and appeals to America's cavalier anti-elitism, but it's ultimately self-destructive. College is hard. It should be hard. That's why it's called "higher" education. It's difficult to breath at higher altitudes. It's not for everyone.
Which isn't to say we shouldn't incentivize undergraduate teaching more than we presently do or that we shouldn't fight the increasingly top heavy administrative apparatus driving college costs through the roof or that we shouldn't push back against the insane branding of these schools. These reforms would be good for students, parents, and professors. But to set a goal of increasing college graduate rates without recognizing the inherent challenges of higher level academic work is just firing the starting gun for a race to the bottom.
18
Wouldn't it make more sense to upgrade the education provided k-12, many jobs require a well trained high school graduate and are actually unsuitable for a well educated college graduate. This could be supplemented by just in time targeted continuing ed for adults , teaching people what they want to know , when they want to know it.
16
I would like to see us do both, increase K-12 funding and higher ed funding.
I teach at the opposite end of the spectrum, at a community college with open enrollment where students either end up transferring to small private schools or state universities or, more likely, end up completing a technical degree in nursing, welding, cosmetology, or radiography, etc.
The hearts are broken here because too often the students are simply not ready, with some--who have graduated high school--still reading at a 3rd to 4th grade level. We teach hard here, but too many students work too many hours to study, have children they must attend to, and do not have basic skills like note-taking or time management.
Many of them make it anyway. I would love to see the problems in higher education addressed, but at least the universities you are reading about still are "the envy of the world." For students who would never aspire to such institutions and can barely figure out why they are in college at all, American education gave up on them long ago and we no longer even pretend to care.
39
Two big factors making college so mean are (1) the narrow focus on brand-name private universities; (2) the 3-hour rule: parents' insistence their children attend university within a 3-hour car ride away from home. Expand your horizons. There are any number of land-grant state universities that provide an Ivy League quality education at a fraction of the price of a private school. Referred to as Public Ivy Schools, they are in all regions of the country, but I would give greater consideration to those in or near dynamic cities with significant employment potential, e.g., U Texas at Austin, U of Minnesota (Twin Cities Campus), UC Berkeley, UCLA, U of Washington in Seattle to name a few. Why limit yourself to a 3-hour car ride when in 5 hours you can cross the country by commercial airline - safer than driving? A lot of the stress is removed when tuition takes a smaller bite and your choice of schools holds out the prospect of a good, high-paying job after graduation in a livable city where in many of these cities and towns, that good paycheck goes even further due to a lower cost of living than back East. Fly, little birdies, fly!
5
@G. James
Out of state tuition for some of these institutions can be prohibitively expensive-- some of which may be encouraging such applicants to bolster declining state funding.
It may be the case that some parents may be wary of regions of the country such as TX given recent headlines. That may trump any college admission concerns.
2
@Mitch I agree that costs or both in and out-of-state students at the flagship state universities has outpaced inflation. And to remain competitive, these schools have invested in expensive student amenities like recreation centers which has driven up tuition. But when compared to $75,000+ at Yale ($53K for tuition alone for the 47% of students who do not receive financial aid), the $25K for out of state tuition and perhaps $4K room & board for dorm-like conditions in student apartment buildings adjacent to campus at the U of Minnesota is still a comparative bargain. Now if states would better support their flagship institutuions, costs would be more in line and perhaps that is where to hold the line.
So, 100 years ago the US pushed public high schooling and graduation rates went from 10% in 1910 to 50% by 1940.
If that's the suggestion for college today, then won't we have to make public colleges ubiquitous, free and with open enrollment, as we did for public high schools?
Gee, that would be back to the future: that was the promise of land-grant universities and of normal schools 100 years ago, too.
But the current US population doesn't have the stomach to dig into its wallet to pay for public colleges the way Americans two or three generations ago did.
Too bad the book didn't dive into that difference.
7
I think the “hardening” of college is part of the general change in our nation over the past few decades.
As our nation has descended from the most prosperous country to just another developed economy, we have become less generous with each other.
We now accept the gig economy as a mainstream approach to a career and rarely discuss work as a vocation.
I think there are many reasons for adolescents and young adults to worry about their future, beyond the stress of obtaining a college degree (or education).
7
Columns like this are part of the problem.
They unwittingly glorify the elite universities that are not necessarily deserving. Two questions must always be asked: How many students per class? Does the professor know everyone's name? If the answer to the former is more than 20, then the answer to the latter is probably no. Almost all the elite universities fail on the twin questions, when one considers classes in the sciences. Anonymity spells inferiority.
Nowhere does Bruni discuss increasing the sheer number of faculty members which would improve the faculty-to-student ratio and hence education, be it a regional state university or Yale. Rather Bruni introduces the fantasy of catch-up:
"Many of them enter college academically behind their wealthier peers, who got better K-through-12 educations, and schools do too little to help them catch up."
How can any one catch up for 12 years of having experienced poorly financed and poorly managed public education in one or two summers? They can't. It's a no brainer.
What we need are more and better professors dedicated to teaching. DITTO for teachers in high schools and primary schools. To do so requires dollars taxed and dollars spent.
8
It may sound absurd to many, but I was a drop out from a 2 year community college and still manage to feed myself and find happiness without all the bells and whistles of a college education.. My kids grew up and neither have attended college much less graduate HS and both are doing just fine financially relatively speaking. Their schools were those of hard knocks and so the lessons were well learned. They'll never get rich and never be corporate CEOs or anything close, but like millions of others like themselves they'll survive and find happiness outside of this mega monied college industrial complex. There really is the alternative life outside of all this. It's not the worst thing you could ever have.
8
@Martino
Kudos on your success but how does your example translate into national policy? The data do support higher salaries generally for college grads.
It has been more than 40 years since I was accepted into the beautiful Mount Holyoke and 37 years since I graduated. Until her death, my mother insisted I could have gotten into Harvard. She nagged me about it for 35 years. I loved MHC. If I had to do it all over again, I would not have changed any thing. That one decision - to attend MHC and not wait to hear from Harvard - made everything in my life today. Because of the eduction I received, the amazing friends I made & the experiences I had, I have the life I wanted to have. Because of MHC, I attended a certain, albeit poorly ranked, law school where I met my husband and found my legal calling. But for MHC, none of that would have happened.
Yes, Mount Holyoke is an elite institution, more so then than now, but I would not have traded it for Harvard or Yale or anywhere else. The fact that my mother has resented that I eschewed an Ivy League school proves that absolutely nothing has changed. Indeed, it has probably gotten far worse.
When my children selected a public university over two different, well-known private ones, I flinched, but they never heard it from me. I was not going to be my mother. Now, one of them, only three years past graduation, makes more than I ever did after 30 years as a public service lawyer. The other now attend ones of those elite law schools that I could never have gotten into. So much for a public university as a harbinger of mediocrity and so much for elite schools being the path to success.
11
@Victoria Morgan An important point of your story is that a state college can be an excellent choice. In today's college market I cannot understand anyone wanting to take on the heavy debt required for private colleges. I also wish there were city universities offering free tuition. I attended Hunter as an undergraduate when there was no tuition; and graduate school which was $45/credit. My parents could not have paid for my college and I was able to support myself through undergrad and graduate education. I can't imagine how I could do that today. (I have since earned more degrees thanks to employment's tuition reimbursement programs, which also barely exist anymore.)
3
All college does for most people is get them there first job. In the Army during Vietnam I got a degree to make sure I kept my job after the war. It didn’t help in the Army at all. No airline pilot needs a degree, it is just a trade school job. Go to community college for a two or ,in FL, a four year degree. Then get a job.
4
A big contributor to this situation is that we don't offer many good alternatives to a classic 4-year college education. College really isn't for everyone, and it isn't trade school. For many high school grads, the only option is some kind of college or the military. We have a rotten attitude about the trades in the US. A master cabinet maker is a wonderful thing. And have you tried to get a hold of a good electrician? We need job prep programs and real apprenticeships and to have some respect for people who work with their hands. Otherwise, it's a lot of square pegs and round holes.
17
If one cannot afford Princeton, they can go to a community college and complete two years of their requirements and then transfer to a four year college.
In fact, many community colleges can graduate students with the ability to find a good paying job in two years.
2
Unfortunately, the collective emotional IQ of our citizenry is low. There is not one simple cause of the problems experienced by young people today. Where a person goes to college is a minor decision in the scheme of life. After graduation, they will learn that the world operates much differently than they were conditioned to believe. The happiest people are the ones who learned how to cope with the ups and downs of life. If you have a positive attitude, a good work ethic and empathy for others you have a good chance of living a good life. If you allow your success to be defined by others, you are at risk for disappointment.
7
I am a retired college president and have some experience in the subject of which you speak, Mr. Bruni. While our educational system, both in the grades and on the campus, are in great need of enlightened overhaul, there exist fundamental factors that contribute to educational success at all levels:
*Parents who place a high value on education and set expectations for their children;
*Students who eschew screen time for the reading of books;
*Parents who instill independence and responsibility in their children and do not manage every aspect of their childrens’ lives for them;
*Teachers who get paid a wage commensurate with the valuable work they perform (because the vast majority of them are dedicated and professional);
*College faculty who are open to the notion of altering their professional traditions to accommodate the new realities of society, rather than resisting any changes for fear of losing the autonomy which attracted them to a life of the mind in the first place (and, by the way, most faculty are also exceptionally dedicated professionals);
*College administrators who are liberated from the traditions just mentioned so they, along with faculty, can revision the academy and thus reduce costs.
The college cruelty of which you write is the offspring of many factors. But attempting to address some of the basic variables cited above will begin to elevate our educational outcomes and yield greater success for future generations.
14
In her forties, my daughter went back to college and is now in a PhD program at an "elite" school. However, that school is not handicapped accessible even for those who aren't in wheelchairs but just have some issues with walking as she does. She doesn't want to teach at an elite college; she wants to teach at a state school.
I think many of our problems started when we forgot the "humanities" are just as important as STEM,
5
Higher education has become nothing more than a mix of a signaling function for employers and a four year spa retreat. The substance of higher education, as numerous former Deans have pointed out, is composed of curricula dominated by the special interests of tenured professors and manned by adjunct professors working for minimum wages. I am absolutely agree that the entire admissions process needs an overhaul, but just as important, who is teaching in these classrooms and what they teach needs a complete overhaul.
5
If KiKi could get into Princeton on scholarship, there are many other very wonderful schools - state and private - that would provide a more welcoming and less pressured environment for her to survive. Honestly, the elite's focus in this country on a handful of schools IS a big part of the problem. I went to a small state school, and I'm well ahead of my ivy-league educated friends and peers in terms of salary, career and social life.
26
There were admission standards for us baby boomers and I can recall being highly relieved upon receiving admission to my university of choice. So to me a lot of this is noise, in no small part created by overly-aggressive parents and the media (as Frank does here).
5
@raincheck But a lot of it isn't noise. When you look at the acceptance rates for the competitive colleges, they are tremendously more forbidding than they were for your generation. As an example, I am 50 years old. When I attended the University of Pennsylvania, its acceptance rate was something like 29%. Currently, Penn's acceptance rate stands at 7.4%.
5
@Jordan Sonnenblick
When you went to college there were probably a lot fewer students applying for college, so the college could admit a larger percentage of students.
2
@esp
When raincheck went to college the Ivy League wasn't such a big deal. Smart rich kids got into the Ivies, but others were perfectly happy to go to state schools or vocational schools. The big question then was not what school did you go to, but how will you change the world when you finish?
1
It is saddening and enraging that Mr Bruni does not mention the plight in education of our young men and boys.
A few decades ago, our girls and young women were behind in school and college. We did the right thing. We got to work to catch them up.
Now, our boys drop out of school more than girls, are kicked out more, go to jail more, commit suicide
4 Times as often, and go on to get only 40% of college degrees.
If these numbers were reversed, and applied to girls, they would be in headlines every day, on every news show.
Mr. Bruni, do the right thing. Our boys need your help. Help them. Write about them. Tell their story.
19
As someone who adjuncted for five years at community college and who is now in their third year as a tenure-track hire, I think some people are painting a rosy picture of the two year system. Over half the classes are taught by adjuncts, who often have no time for professional development and lack specific training in the subjects they are teaching. Moreover they're utterly unsupervised. Then there's the pay. Full-timers pull rank to do a thing called overload, which is taking extra classes. You have full-timers making over $100K in salary, grabbing more classes, and subsequently adjuncts will go on unemployment. Then there's an army of administrators making $300-$400K a year. There's something wrong with people at the top making so much money when those doing most of the teaching are undertrained and being paid poverty wages, and then there's the students, who are for the most part low-income, and are helping foot the bill. And how much value does a president / dean / chancellor provide for that money? How effective can a teacher be when they have 6-7 classes a semester and three during the summer? The thing is, it's worse at most universities: exploited grad students, and more in salaries for administrators.
29
The title of this opinion should be “When Did the US Economy Turn So Cruel”. This is just another Bruni rant about higher education supported with anecdotal evidence. The students in my classes would not turn in an assignment with such poor supporting statements. In every aspect of our society, it’s poor and middle-class strivers who are the most badly served by far. Bruni likes to blame all our societal ills on college. That chasm between the haves and have-nots needs to be addressed in a more thoughtful manner. The limitations of what a BA now provides is not the fault of colleges- it’s the economy. There is plenty of evidence that teen anxiety is caused by a mired of social factors. To blame that anxiety on colleges does a disservice to the issues our youth face. Bruni shows his unwillingness to examine what is really happening on college campuses when he comments on the increase demand for mental health and academic support services at colleges. I ask him to take a look at the college budgets so he can see how much spending on these resources has increased. Meanwhile, government support for colleges has been decreasing. Likewise, primary and secondary education spending has been decreasing. Additionally, lack of regulation of the for-profits leads to predatory activities. Mr. Bruni, these are the issues where you should focus your attention.
20
“Me” explains Bruni’s errors succinctly and accurately. This comment could apply to virtually every Bruni commentary on higher ed, and I say that as someone who finds Bruni’s columns on most every other topic compelling. As always, Bruni generalizes based on a small sample of institutions, this time elite institutions. With over 4,500 colleges in the US, you would think he would sometimes take a look at non-elite non-profits that deliver high quality education against all odds. These schools struggle to attract students and even survive in part because of the intense static created by media and marketing around big-time college sports behemoths, the super-elites, and the for-profits.
And, before anyone else at The NY Times trucks out misleading statistics about student debt, please distinguish between debt accrued at for-profit institutions and debt accrued at public and non-profit institutions. Bruni mentions student debt and mentions for-profit scandals, but he cannot even get them into the same paragraph!
And, yes, the irony of me agreeing wholeheartedly with “Me” has not been lost on me. Thank you “Me” for saying it better than I.
Great. Just realized I misread “Mo” as “Me.” Should have put on my readers.
@Jim In KY LOL. Your eyesight may not be great, but your sense of humor certainly is. Thanks for your comments.
Near the beginning you wrote, what seemed very uncharacteristic of you: "At its best, [college] remains a ladder to higher earnings, greater economic security and dreams fulfilled." That kind of thinking is all too common and all too counter-productive, at its worst producing worthless diploma mills and a business like Trump University. Your final statements are the better way to look at it: "It's something infinitely more transformative. It's an education." It should be a place where people who want to learn can go at any time in their life to meet with people who are able to teach well.
When President Kennedy received an honorary degree from Yale and gave his commencement address, he playfully made the distinction in his opening remarks: "It might be said now that I have the best of both worlds, a Harvard education and a Yale degree." But the difference between an education and a degree is a serious one, collectively ignored at our collective peril.
College should be one of many ways to become a better person, not just a person with better economic prospects, though the latter should follow from the former, and would in a just and educated society.
14
Franks asks, "we need more, better college graduates. So why aren’t we doing more to create them?"
Here's a question: Why do all of the NYT columnists seems to lack any understanding of the world that most Americans live in?
The higher education industry decided to follow the model of corporate America, where making money is the ultimate goal. In that competitive environment, marketing and administrative costs have skyrocketed.More than half of all classes are taught by adjuncts -- independent contractors hired to teach one or two courses -- and full-timers hired on annual contracts.
Like health care, education today isn't viewed as an investment in citizens and the future. It's seen as a way to make money. When you take a free-market approach to everything, this is what you get.
22
@Dario Bernardini. Blaming higher education costs on Capitalism is absurd. Many of the incentives that increased the cost of education came from government policy or regulations. Other incentives increasing costs came from societal pressures which capitalism exploited. You cannot solve a problem if you are blind to the root causes. The problem is complex and difficult to solve. It does no good to flippantly blame the boogeyman and assume everything will be alright if people just did what I wanted them to.
1
@Dario Bernardini
And while no one is getting rich, many administrators make over $200,000 at the low end. They have a high incentive to keeps things afloat.
My college of around 30 faculty has a dean, an associate dean, an assistant dean, a student engagement director, an executive director of marketing and three secretaries.
It is unclear how this bloated administrative structure is contributing to the college as my faculty work life has not changed in 20 years when things were much simpler. Meanwhile, tenure track lines are not replaced and adjuncts and term hires are the norm.
6
@Andy Ritts
Agree the problem is complex. However, the causes are not. Look at the statistics. Over the past 30 years, college cost has increased at more than twice the rate of overall consumer goods. At the same time, wages have barely budged and government funding for colleges has decreased by 30 to 50%. Not sure what you mean by "blame the boogeyman." What I'm saying is that some core functions of society can't operate effectively on a market-based approach. See, progressives actually look at facts to find a solution, unlike conservatives who scream "socialism" or reflexively blame government when they're challenged.
1
I attended a small liberal arts college that most people have likely never heard of. I worked my way through with some help from working class parents, grants and loans.
I now hold 4 degrees including a PhD and MBA, have traveled the world and lived an interesting meaningful life in the nonprofit world.
All of this is to say: a good education can be earned on many different types of campuses. The name-brand fetish of modern education is soul crushing and detrimental to the healthy blossoming of our capacity when we are young. Parents are often to blame here. If they truly care about their children, they should recede to the sidelines precisely at this moment and allow their children decide.
22
Why is it that writers continually highlight the university professors who decide to actually put energy into teaching, when there are thousands of others who made the decision to prioritize teaching from the outset—at colleges like Ithaca and Hamilton and Hobart and William Smith and all our community colleges across he country?
11
@Gipper Hobart. You lost me there. Party school for loaded parents to say. "My kid did not try"
The decline in public funding for higher ed over the last 35 years, coupled with a parallel decline in American manufacturing, has made college more onerous financially at a time when it's never been more necessary. However, the average debt load for bachelor's holders diminishes their ability to maintain middle-class lifestyles as adults. The fraying of this social compact--education for greater prosperity--threatens not only higher ed but our country as well, as it amplifies economic inequality. When the American Dream becomes fraud, watch out.
12
It's difficult for me to tell without reading the book about how much the author talks about the increasing focus of colleges/universities on becoming educational industrial complexes. From the outside, I see more and larger buildings appear on my university's campus, and on plots of land further and further away, emblazoned with the names of wealthy men. New "Institutes" appear regularly on the website, clearly financed by a variety of industries. And the endowment grows and grows.
Seems to me there needs to be some thought given to what the mission of many colleges has become as opposed to what it should be. And to how and why different schools get funding and where that funding goes.
And Bruni's article talks about the challenges of just getting into college, any college, but doesn't discuss much of what happens when the student gets there. Are students being "educated" or are they being "trained"?
I don't have answers. Wish I did.
6
Wow thank you Frank Bruni for a thoughtful article. It gives me pause to realize my sojourn through the public schools,college first the 2 year Centralia College,the unconventional Evergreen State College 1977-80 & then PSU were all real learning experiences. Thanks for bringing your humanity to a hope for a better college experience.
3
There is actually little reason for most young Americans to sequester themselves on some campus and read books for four years.
College was always a bit of a privilege not because State U was nearly free (although that used to be true), but because most working class folks couldn’t afford to take what seemed to be a vacation for four years. The GI Bill changed that perception significantly.
What we need are reasonable alternatives to the four-year college, and then, much more importantly, assurances that those who take a different path are not crushed by economic forces that have destroyed the middle class.
We used to have vigorous trade unions that harnessed the rapaciousness of the elite and spread the bounty more evenly. Let’s start with that concept and make America truly great again.
14
@kkseattle
But I don't think colleges are the same as they were either. You don't just sit and read books for four years--unless you're a philosophy major. There's field work, there are labs, there are tests for knowledge and skills, there are hands on opportunities. People learn advanced computer skills, intricacies of the law and of business and a slew of other things that turn into viable four year jobs. So I agree that we do need other robust and realistic options, but college is not what it was in the early 20th century (like before 1940) and hasn't been for a while.
11
@kkseattle
I can think of a multitude of reasons that young Americans should sequester themselves on a campus and read books. One comes to mind-reading opens minds. Thus far less likely to vote for a demagogue. And more likely to try to make society a better place.
1
And how many of these students and their parents know that they are taking out crushing debt to be taught primarily by a cadre of poor, struggling part-time, temporary adjunct professors not even being paid living wages and living in their cars driving from school to school just to eat? In other words, they are being taught by the equivalent of fast-food workers and baristas, while the mountains of college debt go to shiny buildings and sports coaches and teams - not to teaching staff.
40
@Citizen of the Earth
PhD's who could be teaching in high schools if the credentialing system allowed.
2
As a country, we will prosper by giving our population at large an excellent education so that everybody can succeed according to their ability and not according to the wallets of their parents. Many countries around the world do just that and charge no or only minimal tuition. The US should follow suit and fund public universities accordingly, reversing the trend of the last decades that went into the wrong direction: funding public universities less and less with tax dollars.
Some Democrats (but no Republicans) got the right idea...
16
@Konrad Gelbke
" The U.S. should follow suit" ... ah, but that's not likely to happen soon, is it? So successfully has the myth of "American exceptionalism" been sold to the majority. And equally successfully sold is the knee-jerk reaction against anything however common-sensical, once it is branded as "socialism".
The right to a high quality education for all, at school level, should be recognised as fundamental to building a democracy.
Even the Democrats have a way to go, to recognize this as a right as universal as health care for all.
As a retired college teacher with decades of experience, i know how woefully inadequate and uneven is the school level in my country, where even in the 'good schools', there is an over emphasis on cramming the student with 'facts and figures', with little training in critical thinking.
Are we training lemmings?
1
I have fond memories of my college experience. The school I attended was not a big name. I didn't make influential friends. Beyond serving as an entry credential, I never found that my degree made a big difference in pursuing my career.
During that college experience, the world opened to me. It was an exciting world that challenged my assumptions and provided me with knowledge that has served me well. I read great books and heard stimulating lectures. Conversations with my fellow students were also important. When I finished, even though, as an educated female, I found it hard to get a job, I was a different person. Curiosity, skepticism and an impulse to learn still drive me more than 50 years later.
16
I appreciate Mr. Bruni's interest in higher education; it's problems, its discontents, but also it's promise. I would encourage him to venture outside the issues facing the most elite schools and students and focus a column or two on that great swath of middle tier institutions, especially the state schools. Our task is no less than that of the elite schools, but often with far fewer resources. Our states are both hostile and stingy - a dangerous combination, and our students struggle with their own unique problems, like taking a full load of classes and working a full time job. The Shannens and the Claras of the world you describe have my sympathy. College should, as you suggest in the end, be transformative. What about the Shannens and Claras of my world? Don't they deserve the same?
17
College sports should be forced to operate as a separate entity apart from the school. We have colleges now recruiting kids, good or bad, just to pay the bills. And, even at the college level, it’s still the rich kid, whose dad spends his days schmoozing, who plays.
12
There's something painful too in the idea of meritocracy via education that increasingly rings hollow today, on so many levels, for so many, and for so many reasons. A cruel joke when we now realize what we were up against all along...even with elite degrees.
2
Disclaimer: I am a professor at a state university.
The title for the article is a misnomer: "When Did Society Turn So Cruel" would be a better title, because this is a multifaceted problem.
Tough, for example, touts the public school movement of the early 20th century, but this is, in a weird way, part of the problem now. High schools were set up to prepare the majority of their students for industrial jobs. Now that those industrial jobs are gone, high schools are not preparing those students for higher education.
Tough looks at elite schools and all the problems students have getting into them, but the fact that those schools are elite means they only serve a tiny portion of college students. What about the state schools? At one point, state schools received a large portion of their operating expenses from the states. As the need for state schools increased, as industrial jobs dwindled and more students looked to go to college, the funding for state schools decreased, squeezing the budgets of those schools.
The causes of the problems are myriad, so the solutions will need to be extremely complex, something our society isn't very good at these days.
19
In a country where almost half the voters let their leaders reduce health care, give themselves tax cuts and allow one man with a bunch of acting, non congress appointed hacks turn the country over to corporations, it seems like a natural progression to make education difficult as well. The US is in the control of the haves, who aren't sharing the wealth the rest of us make possible.
College is the new high school and we need more participation, not less. With fewer people able to emigrate in, the US population will have to manage on its own.
The leaders are not up to the task.
8
@Zeke27. Wow, do,you think the “haves” don’t work? And it was Obama who reduced health care.
Colleges are not trade schools.
Colleges are not professional schools.
They are not set up to get you a job after 4 years.
A BA in history degree from Harvard has no clear commercial value except as a stepping stone to law school.
People need to rethink why they are going to a 4 year college and what the financial value of a undergraduate degree in most subjects really is.
12
Quite beyond the individual and collective economics, and quite beyond the cultural growth, individual and collective, an educated, intellectually agile populace is essential to a healthy, functioning democracy. A knowledge of history, skill in language and critical thinking, and lifetime love of learning are not luxuries; they are requirements for human progress. The lack of these things gives us Donald Trump.
A nation first must invest in the children first; that done properly, the other essential investments will follow. Europeans understand this. I don't know if we ever will.
35
One year post high school graduation of service. Everybody that is capable goes through boot camp, then they stay in military for the rest of the time or a domestic or overseas service post. Then free in state tuition for all or vouchers for private school. Everyone should be mixed together for 1 year and serve the country. That will be an education in itself.
15
Great idea to mix people together. May just increase tuition for others perhaps longer service but can be part time and when graduate from that drug free the can get a sum of money toward education, equity in a home, starting a business. Four year college not for everybody.
4
In the age of instant access to information we still have an 18th century higher educational system. The very idea of spending and borrowing to send everyone through this system is absurd. College has become a caste system to determine who will be the privileged in our society. It’s a lovely antique with all the ivy buildings and great traditions but we need to rethink the whole concept of education. Most of our education should be lifelong, on-line, inexpensive or free. Anyone willing to learn should able to and most importantly the price to do so should not be 100k a year. I’ve managed hundreds of college graduates, what they learned in college is was no longer relevant and what school they went to did not make them better than anyone else. Of course certain professions require hands on higher learning but in the high tech field I was in it didn’t matter.
10
I used to teach at a branch of a US university here, and what I noticed over the years is that the number of students who had a plan of what to do with their education dwindled. When I asked a class of maybe 18 students who had a definite plan, maybe 3 hands went up.
As more and more jobs are being automated (I once saw on one internet site that some 97% of CPA positions will be replaced by computers), the justification for getting a higher education is more to keep up with the neighbors. That's just not good enough. There's got to be a better reason.
I told the students who hadn't raised hands to make good use of their time with us to seek advice and come to a decision. Heck, even as I was applying for graduation, I STILL didn't know what to do with a BA in literature. I went to my adviser, and he said it was as clear as the nose on my face--go into English as a Second Language--and he urged me to apply for an MA degree.
Well, here I am semi-retired in Japan, and the rest is history.
8
It seems that I can't read an article in the NYT about colleges that doesn't almost exclusively discuss the Ivies and other prestigious privates (and maybe an occasional state-run R1 institution).
The VAST majority of college students do not attend such schools - why are their concerns never being addressed?
53
First of all, capitalism is broken. Richard Wolff is right. It's hit the fan.
College might be "ladder to higher earnings, greater economic security and dreams fulfilled" but that's not what school should be focused on. It should be focused on making you a better human being.
But since the one thing that America perfected and gave to the rest of the world—the concept of competition—is in our lives from the time we wake up until we go to bed at night, people like Shannen will continue to be worried and exhausted for the rest of their lives. Kids will continue to be bullied. People at the bottom of the economic scale will continue to be pushed down by those above them, and those people by those above then.
This cultural madness has to stop because it's spun out of control. The only thing that will get everyone's attention is a complete economic collapse, and it's coming. Competition has to move toward cooperation and we have to stop fighting each other for the next rung on the ladder.
15
The negativity toward university education is misplaced. American colleges and universities still offer their students excellent educational opportunities since the vast majority of teaching faculty take their responsibilities seriously. That said, the cost is absurd; the cruelty is in the levels of debt required to finance the education. Universities are partly to blame in that they do so little to hold down their costs—and often increase costs in the College arms-race in which administrators build fancy new facilities and add more and more student services because they compete with each other for fewer and fewer college-age students. One wonders why the selling point shouldn’t be lower cost. But states don’t support their public institutions and as a nation we appear to prefer the “jobs-program” known as the US military. And that’s instructive: if we cut the military budget in half just think of all the socially productive things we could do with that money: improve education at all levels, improve health care. But we can’t find the will to do that because we prefer killing people to making people’s lives better.
12
I was a young American born to a family of 9 living on $12,000 a year in a rural village in the Hudson Valley. I hated going to school in that rural village that didn't value education and where I was bullied by young men in their late teens still in 8th grade. I took an entrance test and got into a Catholic high school, then paid most of my own way through it with money from summer jobs. I had to hitchhike for 4 years to go to and from it because their was no mandated busing from 14 miles away and I could not afford public transportation. I went to a 4 year Catholic college in the same city while working 30 hours a week and hitchhiking for the first two years. I barely graduated, then was drafted into the Vietnam War for two years. I then used my veteran's benefits and a supportive wife to get an advanced degree and become a psychologist while paying off my undergraduate loans. Now I am a happy and proud citizen of Canada, and I'm happy and proud to know young Canadians who have time to get really good grades and love their college experience because they recieve financial supports while they are in college, interest free loans, loan forgiveness after 7 years and tuitions under $15,000 a year in all colleges. I'm blessed to now live in a happier country, Canada, that has evolved educationally beyond the survival of its fittest, a policy that remains in the US and has worsened.
48
@Richard Thank you. I am an American due to be sworn in as a Canadian citizen today. Although some of the same stresses I felt in the US are creeping up north, I find that my values are much more in line with this country, where education and health care are considered not only a privilege but more importantly a basic right.
19
"and a few professors in particular have decided to go back to the beginning, more or less, and pour extra energy into actual teaching."--hey, wait a minute! there are small liberal arts colleges throughout the country that have teaching faculties, that id, faculties devoted to teaching, who pour energy into teaching as a matter of course. Many of these colleges are starving for enrollment, though they so clearly provide an antidote to madness described by Tough. They treat their students well, and have devoted alums. Why are they left out of the discussion?
15
Why does college have to “be the new high school”? Even in a “current era of technology and automation” if we rethink and invest in the K-12 curriculum, we can (and should) create opportunities for young people without college degrees.
9
@RLR--We should probably be creating opportunities for people of all ages. Train, re-train, and retrain. This goes back to the public school system's job to teach the basic reading, writing and math skills to facilitate life-long learning. Note: no mention of college.
5
We can fix this. In the long term, we need to cut administrative bloat, lavish amenities, and non-profitable sports programs that constitute an arms race at some schools. States need to restore funding to campuses, too. These factors have ramped up tuition costs.
I also wish these sorts of articles focused more on lower-cost options, such as community colleges.
We do not have to remain a nation with a Victorian system of social divisions. In the short term, however, that is where we are.
8
My son spent his first two years at a private university in Chicago, not a big name or elite one. He skated through with straight A’s he barely had to work for and was shocked at the lack of rigorous classes, at the lack of challenge and yes learning.
He transferred to Willam and Mary and was again shocked at how much more work was required and a much more challenging curriculum.
The school matters. Is college just for the piece of paper or is to give a student an education?
9
College has nothing to do with the education of our young or what if will do for the student's future. It is a measure of the parent's success. Why is college expensive? Because parents will pay for it.
1
College is expensive because everyone can get loans to pay for it. Not because parents will pay for it.
15
@Gerald not all parents pay for their childrens' college educations. Many pay for it themselves. There are also different paths to reach the goal. Community colleges offer a lot for those needing to work while pursuing their college education part-time. Daytime, evening and weekend courses fulfill the flexibility often needed for those non-traditional students. All you have to do is make sure all your course credits are transferable to the 4-year colleges you are interested in applying to later on to complete a bachelors degree, a desire to learn and a lot of energy.
@Jonny O’Brien
Nonsense. What parent would send their child to Yale for an English degree so that they can teach high school English? Or paying $125,000 a YEAR for an NYU Dental School degree? $5,000 a MONTH student loan? To become a dentist???A wealthy parent.
As a higher ed educator and mother of two tween daughters, I welcome this reflection with open arms. College is getting harder to get into, especially the Ivy leagues, and when finally there, resources for diverse students are minimal or lacking. I know is not fair that universities are picking up the slack K-12 education is not providing, but we have to. Is part of the central definition of university and many faculty, unfortunately, have forgotten-or plainly not considered- how to teach. The value of a university is the relationship between students and faculty, but faculty must show up, and administrators need to support this relationship first. That is the key, from my perspective, to start caring and stop being cruel.
5
Dig deeper, seniors. Stay adventurous. Explore interests. I’ve been involved in the college scene for many years and have some advice.
If you are not sure about a career, go the liberal arts route in freshman and sophomore years; soon enough your talents and predilections will point you to your matching field.
As soon as you find a match, find a college. That’s right, transfer (in most cases). Now you are looking, not really for a school but a department. Move to the best you can find for what you can afford.
One student started in an elite university, discovered his love of computer security, and transferred to an ITACS department of a small school. His research told him he would get the education and environment he required and would fully enjoy.
Departments are where the action is; the institution is just a big bunch of buildings with a football team. And most of the teams aren’t all that great.
Find your dream and then follow it to where it can become a transformative reality.
17
Things have not changed as much as one would think. The pressures on graduating high school seniors were similar. The cost have increased exponentially. (A year at a top university in 1966 was about $3k in 1966, $60k today, 20 times greater 53 year later.) A broadly educated populace would be a plus. The pressure to "train" people has increased, sadly. No where in Mr. Bruni's discussion is there mention of the value of the liberal, thoughtful mind.
4
@Watcher, I cannot agree more. Mr. Bruni appears primarily concerned with how many get in to the top name-brand universities. A total that has been a fixed quantity for decades. This article could just as easily been written about 18-year olds seeking the a Tesla. How patently unfair that the privileged get this ride at 18 while the middle class must scrape and borrow to put their children in a car worthy of Mr. Bruni's attention.
The more people we have in this world the less important each of us are and the more selfish our society becomes. We knew about global warming and the continuing devastation of our planet fifty or more years ago and yet outcomes are dimmer.
What use is education if we aren’t bettering our lot? How is it possible that environmental studies and the macro-level are not a staple at all education levels? We put ourselves in a global crisis and we need understand why (gross wealth inequalities?) and develop solutions quickly. Woke is acceptance of reality. Wake up and let’s fix this.
4
There's also the outright cruelty many students have to endure at the hands of their classmates, instructors, and sometimes other adults who hang around college campuses because there's a pool of naive young people to exploit. This is especially difficult for female students and members of some minority groups, but it could hit anyone who's an outsider.
I know it's fashionable to laugh at college kids demanding safe spaces. But in many cases they're reacting to situations that would never be tolerated in adult workplaces.
3
@Maria
What they are reacting to is the very nature of our dog-eat-dog socio-economic system.
3
@Thomas I'm talking even more basic than that. In adult life, if you encounter an office harasser, there's usually an HR department. And the person doesn't also live in your building, eat meals in the same room, and work out at your gym.
1
America's higher education system has many of the same issues as our healthcare system does. It's still founded on the basic belief that it's a privilege not a right for citizens, so we really have no true national strategy, as to how it serves us and the essence of what we believe our nation to be.
16
This article misses a key reality. As secondary ed programs have become complete failures in such large swaths of the country, most students will need an advanced degree to achieve a high degree of professional success. My recommendation for the non 1%: go to a community college for two years and then a state comprehensive college (but stand out from the crowd: get involved in research projects, do internships etc) and then finally consider a somewhat "prestigious" graduate school. There is a lot to be said for being the big fish in a little pond. Nobody will care about the names on your undergraduate transcript when hiring -- all they will see is the graduate degree. You will have saved all the headaches-- financial or otherwise as described here. The "fancy" undergraduate degree, while "pretty" and ego-gratifying, is by no means the only path to success.
19
Higher education has become a racket for overpaid professors and especially administrative personnel to extort money from middle class and poor people to create a cocoon environment where everyone tells each other how great they are while the financial aid industry shears their sheep. Even with that full understanding, I nonetheless found a way to support my two children through excellent "name" schools in order to help them avoid future financial calamity (successfully!). We have created a sick winner-take-all culture in the US that will continue to eat itself until we stop the Republican oligarchs from their plundering.
9
College is probably a cruel experience now because it costs so much and kids and their parents come out of it, if they ever graduate, tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt that has not insignificant interest associated with it.
Many colleges use to be free in many states not too long ago in this country. The California state university system was basically free up until the 1970's. Same for many state university systems for in-state students. What changed? A lack of support by legislators who wanted to prioritize tax cuts, particularly cuts that benefited the wealthy and corporations. That, and the schools bloating their administrative staff at the expense of teachers.
We could extend free public education at least to the first two years of the college (or trade school) level whereby at the end of the first two years every student gets an associated degree. Those wishing to continue to a four-year bachelors degree can build upon the associates degree for another two years. This model is already used in graduate schools for those pursuing a Ph.D. where initial research is written up and presented as a Masters as one continues to build upon that and eventually presents a Ph.D. thesis. The money is there to do this. In fact we are already spending that money right now in Afghanistan- $45 billion a year. In a NYT article it talks about a cost of $79 billion per year to supply tuition-free education at every public college and university. This is very feasible.
15
It wasn't college that turned cruel, it was life. Not for some, but for many. Fact of the matter is that both were always as cruel as they were challenging. Instilling self confidence in kids should begin at home (if/when possible) before school, then continue throughout their education to prepare them for the real world of successes and disappointments. As corny and naive as that sounds, it's an investment made by parents, teachers and students that can pay off for everyone in our 'society.' Of course, it always takes more time than money.
3
Mr Bruni makes the point several times that we “need” more college graduates. (Ie “In the current era of technology and automation, college is the new high school“) — but he doesn't explain why we “need” them. Clearly, many “blue collar” jobs will be replaced by animation, but no one knows what sort of jobs will come in their wake. If primary and secondary education were as effective as they should be (and as they were 100 years ago), there would be no need for an increase in university graduates, nor even, perhaps, the current number of graduates. Apprenticeships, technical colleges, community colleges, etc should be sufficient to prepare many people good quality jobs.
As I mentioned in a reply below, in France and Germany (to give just two examples), less than 30% of adults are graduates of tertiary education (versus 44% in US), yet those countries have high standards of living and low unemployment — suggesting higher education isn’t as essential as Mr Bruni suggests, other than for people pursuing professional careers and/or academic research.
7
@LD, good point, and I would also argue that Mr. Bruni does not explain why specifically Yale or the other name-brand universities he focused on are the solution to are workforce needs.
2
AAUP reports that 73% of instruction is provided by adjuncts. Financial services industry are only to happy to provide the loans. College athletics are heavily subsidized. Several factors that may be influencing the lack of content in higher education. It’s a business. Who’s buying?
4
Why doesn’t this column discuss the CUNY system?? It’s both simple to enter and cheap. Graduates get good jobs with little or zero debt
Why doesn’t this column mention that far from admissions being ultra competitive, the vast majority of colleges are easy to get into? That 70% of US colleges do not fill?
This column perpetuates the very myth that makes college so painful for many, that it’s impossible to get into and too expensive to afford.
The column would do better to note that the top 25 colleges are hard to get into but if you have a background like the girl in the Bronx waiting to hear from Princeton, your education there will cost on average $6k per year.
There are educational bargains galore currently. In addition to CUNYs, U of Maine is offering to match instate tuition. It offers ABET-accredited engineering. U of Utah allows you to declare in-state status after one year. University of the Pacific is a private school with excellent FA and great STEM offerings and coop programs on a nice campus. Southwestern University is a small elite LAC with great FA and an historic campus founded in 1852 next to Austin TX.
If students and parents and Mr. Bruni would look outside of the USNWR top 25 they’d find much opportunity. After all the USNWR is just some magazine that was failing and decided to boost sales by ranking schools. Time to get unstuck from that paradigm.
29
It also fails to mention that state schools even in the south cost $30,000 per year and while fairly easy to get into, are hard to pay for with stagnating wages and increased interest on large loans.
If you get a starting job in business/marketing you’ll make between $35,000 and $45,000 in wide swathes of the south and Midwest. And apartment rent starts at $1,000 per month. 😳 the math doesn’t work.
4
@SDemocrat
I understand the math here and I sympathize. College costs, especially at directional universities such as Southern Illinois University ($9K tuition, $9K R&B, &9K in FEES) are atrocious. What amazes me, though, is the assumption that each person starting out needs his or her own apartment. I'm from NYC and virtually everyone shares living space when starting out, and even later, mainly because of a shortage, with 2% vacancy rates for housing. There's also an assumption generally that everyone must have a car -- I say assumption because that's the idea, the assumption, beneath the current infrastructure. If people had the idea of sharing transportation, and not individual ownership of everything, we'd have more public bus and train service to towns and suburbs, suburbs would not be as spread out, suburbs would have town centers instead of sprawl and there would be sidewalks for walking on thus reducing the obesity epidemic. We assume that each child starting out from college needs to have his or her own car. Each needs his or her own apartment. Each needs his or her own furnishings. When I visit people in the burbs I'm amazed that in front of each house are three cars, about. One for each parent and one for the kid. The cost of that--it's like a tax that no one seems to notice.
2
I guess most of the world doesn’t work like LA, NYC, Chicago. You can find a roommate if you are lucky, but if you like in a town with a population of less than 100,000 you might not find a compatible roommate that you know and trust. And you will actually need that car, some car. Doesn’t need to be new or fancy... but everything is three to five miles away.
And I’m a Democrat, I’m just a rurally located one.
I spent 7 years working on a college campus of a small private university in the Midwest in the late 70's and early 80's. There was no shortage of social angst, anxiety about the future, relationship issues, and personal crises. Much of it correlated with transitioning; into college during the freshman year, and then out into the "world" for seniors. Developmentally it is a challenging time almost by definition. The educational mission, while having a career agenda, also was about developing whole persons with broader and deeper awareness of the world around us. IF college years are more brutal today, it may be a symptom of the demise of community, and the hyper focus on career and material well-being. We've lost perspective in many areas and this is only one.
7
College?
Even at the age of 55 and no matter how much I have learned over the years I still don't think I could make it through high school let alone college. I'm left with trusting that I just didn't have it in me to make it through those institutions and that they are doing what they say they do, bringing out the best in people, educating people, finding the leaders and thinkers of tomorrow, locating and developing the brightest hopes of the human race.
The problem I have though is that considering education historically, and observing it today, shouldn't the process of it be a lot more efficient, with much more rapid and evidently valuable results, so that faith in the system is unshakable? What I mean is education even today seems like an extremely crude method of extracting valuable metals from ore, so crude that it can even be accused of not so much extracting valuable metal from ore of society as merely creating crude class divisions, separating a merely wealthy class from the rest.
I can live with my failure as third rate citizen, one who failed in the education system, if the system is really bringing out the fine metal in society, but I can tell you it makes me extremely bitter to see that a lot of the supposedly educated, better people, are a repetition of scoundrels we have seen all through human history, and so much so it calls into question whether we have a system of refinement in society at all.
If I'm to be considered dirt, the Gods had better be Gods.
12
Frank,
Your newfound awareness of poor kids stress, worry and incredible hard work to get into and get through college in no way means that is a new phenomena.
It is just new to you.
It was always the case that poor kids who did not go to the local Community College or Tech School had challenges moving up in the economic class.
First, often poor kids high school did not prepare them for the challenges and academic rigor of college and that has to be made up by much, much more stringent work ethics.
Second, even state schools are not cheap like they used to be now.
Third, most of the time, unlike rich white kids whose mothers or fathers are filling out all the forms and sorting the college complexity for the rich white kids, poor kids are doing all of the stuff on their own without their parents even knowing about it.
None of the above is new Frank.
Just new to you.
18
I spent my career teaching at a mid-level state university.
Want a good education? That's where you can get it, inexpensively.
For most of my career the modal student was a first-generation college student.
The faculty, my colleagues, were great. Of course there was the exception here and there, but for almost all of them they would help any student who walked into their office with any problem. Most courses were taught by full-time faculty, not by adjuncts or graduate students.
Many of our graduates came to us after two years at Community Colleges. Inexpensive.
What can we do to encourage students to go this type of route? It works, it gets them degrees, it gets them pride, and it gets them jobs.
I loved those students.
7
@Travelers, those students are still applying and attending mid-level state schools. But, as was the case in the 1970s, the Manhattan-based 1% are interested solely in whether their kid or the less privileged get in to the top name brand universities.
1
Three quarters of college students attend public colleges. The prominence of elite private schools in discussions about college education is an obsession that distorts the issue. You would think an editorial like this would talk mostly about most college students. But, as always, there is only a passing reference to one public college, Clemson.
8
@michjas, could not agree more. This article could replace getting your kid in Yale with getting your kid a Tesla and it would have read no differently.
1
I recommend cheaper public universities and/or two-year technical schools followed by a transfer to a larger school.
Expensive private university degrees are only worth it for the wealthy, or those pursuing careers like medicine who will more likely have the means to pay the loan easily. Paying $200,000 for a degree in the humanities does not sound like a smart bet.
Unfortunately Americans are attracted to shiny, expensive and impractical things.
5
It is disturbing to read about the heartache young people in America have forced upon them by the people running our universities and by the politicians who are supposed to care about higher education in our nation.
Getting a bachelor’s degree today is the equivalent of getting a high school diploma forty years ago. A decent high school education is free, but getting a B.A. costs far more than it ought to cost. Financial aid for young people from families of modest means may be elusive, and a loan imposes a life-sentence to a burdensome debt at artificially high interest rates.
There is no reason why a bachelor’s degree should not be free in the United States, but like the high school diploma, the student would have to complete the college education in four or five years.
There are also cultural gaps. Kids from inner cities and farm towns are fed a dream of an Ivy League education, but Princeton or Yale may only want a handful of those kids as window dressing to prove diversity. The out-of-place student is expected to fit in with kids from very privileged environments. Some kids make it.
Private colleges considered the best in America may possibly be the best, but the margin of difference with state schools is razor-thin, and in a state university the well-known professor may actually teach classes.
There are many aspects of college life which parents find annoying, and which devastate kids. America needs to do a better job educating our youngsters.
5
@sdw
Here is what keeps people from completing college in 4 years if they are poor. Family getting evicted because you contributed by working. Scholarships do not cover room and board. You dare to better yourself and your kid(s) by going to college and can only go part-time, which means less aid.
Some take longer because they do not know what they want to be when they grow up or others suffer from severe Peter Pan syndrome.
If finishing in 4 years is going to be a requirement for the "free" degree then we have supply enough aid to ensure students can afford to go to school full time. Let's also require 2-3 gap years or two yrs interning before you qualify for the free degree.
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@skramsv
I'm not sure about how the "gap years" or the "interning" being required before a poor kid entered college would work, but I agree with your assessment of the various pressures which make it tough for kids from impoverished backgrounds to complete a degree in 4 or 5 years. To me, a free degree entails paying a student an amount each year which covers more than just tuition.
@sdw--Nothing is free. I assume that your are discussing taxpayers footing the bill for the BA instead of the student. If so, you should say that instead of misrepresenting who actually pays.
I’ve learned about cruelty this week when UVA blocked my grandson from classes over a summer school bill, would not negotiate, threatened to dismiss him entirely as he entered his senior year. Our only respite came from a lawyer who advocated for this young man, pro bono, directly with the UVA bursar to negotiate a two week window for the payment (we had never missed our financial obligation). Very hard ball experience.
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@Susan Anderson, I had the same experience with the bills for my son's Tesla. Glad to see you fighting hard for keeping your son in the best possible name-brand institution. God forbid he has to spend a couple years with the riffraff in a community college or learning directly from professors at a mid-major state school rather than learning from graduate students teaching on behalf of research professors as usually the case at Virginia.
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My career path has benefited greatly from what I learned in college - but as a photographer and then as an entrepreneur, I've never needed a college degree. Two of my best friends and business partners never attended college. When I look for a new employee, I truly don't care where they went to school.
And yet I do mention my econ degree from UCLA in my Linked-In profile (I wouldn't get in today) because I like to signal to people that I'm certified "smart enough." And when I'm at a party with people who attended Princeton or Harvard or Yale I don't feel lesser. These feelings are a weakness of ego on my part, but they're real.
In practical terms college brand matters tremendously if you aspire to great things in law and medicine or seek a fortune in investment banking. But in the rest of the great wide world, college brand doesn't really matter. It's a matter of ego. There are many ways to satisfy ego beyond the brand of college you attend.
Finally, for today's kids who aspire to UCLA or Princeton and don't get in, here's a secret. UMass Amherst today is what UCLA was 40 years ago. Don't diss it.
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Don't see any mention of the schools that have made working and poorer students their entire focus, Community Colleges. Easy to make up for status schools that do not adjust; simply spend the first two years at a community college. Mine had 18 ESL teachers, while my status undergrad college had one--at the same time it dmitted more students with serious English composition problems (more non-native writers). I had a great B.A. and Ph.D. from a school that boasted Bellow and Berryman, with my best undergrad friend Harold Bloom's favorite young colleague at Yale, so my comm coll students got more than they bargained for; adn, a a former pre-med, I knew our school also had one excellent chem prof, and a couple in math. True, comm coll students have to find the better teachers, but I'd argue that's true anywhere. Many profs now vlued as advocates and screedits, not for their learning.
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Thank God I graduated from NYU in 2004. My experience there was beautiful. For such a large university it had amazingly supportive faculty, staff, and students. I shudder at the thought of going to college now in the feral survival of the fittest culture America has degenerated into.
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@Joseph Roquebecil i went in 1996. still paying it off.
As an early gen Xer I was able to pay for my Cal State education with a part time job. $200/semester plus books. At the time (mid 80s, early 90s), a Cal state student could expect to be taught by teaching professors, rather than adjuncts and grad students as was the case at University of California campuses, where research faculty were more valued, and where tuition was higher.
I got a good education that wound up being entirely unrelated to my future decently lucrative IT career. If I were graduating high school today, I’d choose a trade like plumber or electrician. Can’t outsource/offshore those.
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My nephew is currently attending a Cal State campus, and his costs are jaw-dropping in comparison to mine.
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@T. Sullivan - Definitely plumber or electrician especially if they plan to own their own business. Even college graduates with Computer Science degrees are competing with H1-B high tech workers from India, and other countries with large populations. Over 75% of Silicon Valley highly skilled tech workers are on H1-B Visas. No wonder many high tech CEOs love Pres. Trump. These workers often work as consultants and lower the overall pay of USA born tech professionals.
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It wouldn’t surprise me if our bought and paid for Congress allows H-1Bs into the country as tradesmen in the near future. There is NO long term surety anymore.
The money that the government has made available to students wanting to attend college is not responsibly loaned or borrowed......lenders “value” a degree in, say, art history or studio art equally with a degree in, say, chemical engineering despite the existence of overwhelmingly consistent outcomes that the art student will not be in as good of an an economic situation to repay the debt as the engineering student. students are apparently not counseled on what reasonable expectations might be at the end of the education road. This is shameful.
I am all for people following and developing their interests and I accept the talents that other have in a host of fields outside my own; but, a general “selling” of the idea that an 18 year old HS graduate should be thus enabled “to follow your passion” without full consideration of the implications tomorrow of actions taken today borders on criminal, in my view. But, perhaps that’s the bigger picture that has been made small in light of the easy money and the college and universities insatiable spending which has driven the cost to ridiculous levels.
Make student loan debt extinguishable in Bankruptcy and watch how quickly credit decisions sharpen up and how promptly the colleges and universities will respond to cost pressures by the consumers—the students.
This expensive monster cannot continue indefinitely.
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Before I went to college in 1950, I was able to earn enough to pay for a year of college: my first year cost me a total of $ 633, including room and board and an occasional visit back to my distant home, NYC. And yet: my profs were highly qualified professionals who provided me with a bachelor degree upon which I was able to build a successful career.
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@Jack Lohrmann
Knowledge is money and it’s not given so freely these days.
I learned way back in the 1960's when I spent 4 years at a prestigious New England university that college was not about the students. We were last on the list of importances.
Yes, of course we were needed to fuel the school in terms of income and credibility, in much the same way as gasoline is to your shiny new car, but how often do you think about gas? Only when and if you're getting low or it doesn't perform well, otherwise your attention is on how the car drives, how it looks, and whether it impresses others.
In truth, college was about the administration first, the faculty second, and the students a distant third, almost an afterthought. Programs weren't devised with student wellbeing and eventual ability to have successful careers; they were devised to look good and to add to the prestige of the faculty supposedly running them.
So what was important to the administration? Money, and lots of it. Prestige, perhaps even more so. The ability to fundraise and put up new buildings, what we called an 'edifice complex'. And having an impressive faculty.
What was important to the faculty? Tenure, or job permanence. Money. Time to do research so that one might publish, gain tenure, build a reputation. Students? Oh yes, those pesky 'office hours' when one actually had to speak one on one with clueless students.
I don't think anything has changed in the intervening years. Prestige, ego, status, money - the true goals of those who run universities. Students? Not so much.
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