Value and purpose of college

[Anonymous]

As I ponder the cost of college these days, I am also thinking about the value. It's such a different world vs when I applied. My HS education was considered strong at the time, but it wasn't until college that i explored philosophy and other great texts. In contrast, my kid's rigorous high school has an advanged curriculum and reading lists that demand a high level of critical thinking and analysis, similar to my SLAC experience. It leads me to think that perhaps the LAC might be a dated concept and that perhaps it's OK to think of college as a time to gain additional skills like business analytics, engineering, and business skills that will set my kid up for the job market. I know internships help fill this need, but shouldn't colleges amend their curriculums to include some marketable skills? I used to believed in the superiority of a liberal arts education but I think I am changing my mind. Particularly since we are not connected/wealthy and my child is not thinking of grad school. Interested in hearing other perspectives...

[Anonymous]

Sounds like your kid show go direct into the workforce then since they have already mastered creative/lateral thinking, writing and quantitive skills and honed these through discourse in small classrooms. For their technical career training, they would be best suited going to a corporation and learning on the job than sitting in a lab with a masters student at a state flagship in a STEM program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like your kid show go direct into the workforce then since they have already mastered creative/lateral thinking, writing and quantitive skills and honed these through discourse in small classrooms. For their technical career training, they would be best suited going to a corporation and learning on the job than sitting in a lab with a masters student at a state flagship in a STEM program.

My high stats kid is at a well regarded state flagship taking STEM courses taught in full by tenured professors. But you do you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As I ponder the cost of college these days, I am also thinking about the value. It's such a different world vs when I applied. My HS education was considered strong at the time, but it wasn't until college that i explored philosophy and other great texts. In contrast, my kid's rigorous high school has an advanged curriculum and reading lists that demand a high level of critical thinking and analysis, similar to my SLAC experience. It leads me to think that perhaps the LAC might be a dated concept and that perhaps it's OK to think of college as a time to gain additional skills like business analytics, engineering, and business skills that will set my kid up for the job market. I know internships help fill this need, but shouldn't colleges amend their curriculums to include some marketable skills? I used to believed in the superiority of a liberal arts education but I think I am changing my mind. Particularly since we are not connected/wealthy and my child is not thinking of grad school. Interested in hearing other perspectives...

Don't SLAC schools have majors?

[Anonymous]

College in its present form is living on borrowed time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College in its present form is living on borrowed time

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College in its present form is living on borrowed time

Agree. change is coming in the next 10 years. It will be unrecognizable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College in its present form is living on borrowed time

At current costs of a BA/BS degree, the college studies really need to prepare a student with specific marketable skills and knowledge that will lead to a well-paid career (enough where one parent working FT can still have a family with 2 kids and live in a reasonable house with good enough public schools). And it needs to be enough salary to pay off any incurred student debt within 5-10 years.

That does not mean everyone needs to be majoring in STEM, but even folks outside the STEM majors need to be getting specific work-relevant training and education.

[Anonymous]

We need a cadre of drones to do the grunt work - everything from manufacturing to maintenance to finance and accounting.

However, we also need an intellectual caste who understand history, culture, politics etc.

I think it is great that more and more parents want to feed their kids straight into the work grinder. More space for my kids in the more intellectual realm.

[Anonymous]

I don't know, I'm a successful adult with a successful career. I'm not doing anything at all related to my college major.

I think the value and purpose of college is to learn something new and be able to learn how to learn something new, get exposure to lots of fields and types of work and see what you are good at and like, grow up.

A lot of college is a bridge to adulthood - learning how to get along with people when your parents aren't around to help, learning to ask for help, living and working independently, learning social and financial skills, etc.

Sure this world makes it seem like everyone should be in a pre-professional program and just learn to get into a high income generating field, but that's not what most successful people do or did.

I think the value of college is more in the other things, and therefore you don't need to pay 80K per year to accomplish those things.

-mom of one current college student and one recent college graduate who is working and supporting herself but also not in her field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As I ponder the cost of college these days, I am also thinking about the value. It's such a different world vs when I applied. My HS education was considered strong at the time, but it wasn't until college that i explored philosophy and other great texts. In contrast, my kid's rigorous high school has an advanged curriculum and reading lists that demand a high level of critical thinking and analysis, similar to my SLAC experience. It leads me to think that perhaps the LAC might be a dated concept and that perhaps it's OK to think of college as a time to gain additional skills like business analytics, engineering, and business skills that will set my kid up for the job market. I know internships help fill this need, but shouldn't colleges amend their curriculums to include some marketable skills? I used to believed in the superiority of a liberal arts education but I think I am changing my mind. Particularly since we are not connected/wealthy and my child is not thinking of grad school. Interested in hearing other perspectives...

I feel that college should prepare students to enter the workforce either through skill building in pre-professional programs or through opportunities for summer internships.

I have a liberal arts degree (class of '96), and while I enjoyed college immensely, I feel I gained very few real world skills through my degree. In contrasts, my peers studying engineering, teaching, nursing were all better prepared to enter the work force. Those of us who graduated with liberal arts degrees went to med school, law school, or have Master's Degrees in various discipline.

OP, like your child, I feel like mine is getting a mini liberal arts education through her HS (mainly due to the IB degree she's pursuing).

[Anonymous]

The escalating cost of college is definitely changing my expectations as a parent. Yes, i want my kid to have the opportunity to grow socially and intellectually, but I expect my kid to enter college with a plan. It can change, but they need to have a general idea of what they want to do when they get there. If they have no idea, then I will encourage a gap year to explore and get clarity. Going to college is a major investment and expenditure for our family. My kid will need to be self supporting when they graduate. When state schools cost 60k and private at 100k - I also expect more from a university than rankings or prestige. Seeing 6 year graduation rates does not reassure me. I feel like many university departments (particularly in the humanities) have become lazy, reliant on their past grandeur and not doing much to foster innovation in their curriculum, major offerings, hands-on experiential learning, etc. I am not fixated on high earning potential, but I am fixated on knowing my kid will find meaningful employment that allows them to be a self reliant and self supporting adult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We need a cadre of drones to do the grunt work - everything from manufacturing to maintenance to finance and accounting.

However, we also need an intellectual caste who understand history, culture, politics etc.

I think it is great that more and more parents want to feed their kids straight into the work grinder. More space for my kids in the more intellectual realm.

Yeah... I wouldn't bet on this. As soon as "grunt work" overflows people will rush to study "culture".

I think the same will happen to ECs. The niche and the bizarre will run their course and we will be back to piano and violin.

[Anonymous]

I have two kids who graduated from Langley. They both got top grades, top test scores, and are attending great colleges. Despite their great high school experience, their university experience is still very different.

Being surrounded by some of the smartest kids in the country/world, listening to and discussing topics with amazing professors, and having REAL discussions about meaty subjects is NOT what’s happening at even the best high schools.

AP classes offer difficult, supposedly college-level material, but it’s stuffed into kids like a Thanksgiving turkey. There is no discussion. In fact, most kids say nothing because they fear they’ll say something politically incorrect.

All that said, only you and your kid knows what’s right for them, but let’s not pretend that a rigorous HS is equivalent to a non-professional degree at a highly-regarded SLAC.

[Anonymous]

I just got one of Boston College's magazines and the entire issue is about the value of a liberal arts education.

https://www.bc.edu/content/bc-web/centers/church21/publications/c21-resources/issues/Jesuit-Higher-Education

It's okay if you/your kid is more interested in job training. That can be done without a four-year college degree.