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[quote=Anonymous]My parents went through this with my little brother, who is finishing up undergrad right now.  It was new territory for them, because I went to a private liberal arts college right after high school, graduated in four years, and went to grad school immediately after undergrad.  Not that I didn't have my own adjustments/issues/semesters with mediocre grades, but essentially I found my way through college and post-college life without too much parental guidance.  But I think they dealt with it well, because my brother is back on his feet, so I'll share the story.

Essentially he went to a private college with a pretty good academic reputation, paying full tuition and his first couple years were a disaster.  It was a combination of factors: immaturity, some issues with depression (our grandfather, who he was very close to, died while he was in college), and not finding his niche socially.  He had some issue with violating some dorm rules regarding alcohol and had hostility from the administration which exacerbated things.  After his second year of getting mostly Cs a few Ds, and failing a class or two, my parents said that it where he was attending was too expensive for this kind of academic performance and pulled him out and told him he could go to community college to get his grades up and then maybe consider transferring to another 4 year college that was a better fit.

So my brother came home, lived at home, and went to the local community college for a few semesters.  This experience was GREAT for him in a number of ways.  We went to a very large, competitive suburban high school where the expectations were very high in an affluent community, and so when he was in school he was always in the middle of the pack.  Figuring out that he was able to get good grades, and that high school did prepare him well compared to many in his community college gave him some confidence after spending so much of his life as a small fish in a big pond.  He was also exposed to a lot of kids who came from less privileged backgrounds, and a lot older military people who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan, and several people in other stages of their lives.  This gave him some perspective and appreciation of the life my parents gave us, rather than his former private college which was also mostly full of kids that had similarly privileged backgrounds.  He figured out what it was that he wanted to study (mechanical engineering) and was able to get involved in some robotics extracurriculars related to his major and find a part time engineering internship.  He also got his grades up, so he was able to transfer to a four year college.  I have heard him acknowledge how grateful he is that my parents made sure we always attended excellent schools, which is something I would have never heard prior to that experience.

He decided that it would be a better fit for him to go to a local commuter college (a four year university with a pretty decent engineering program) and live at home.  My parents don't mind, because all they have to pay is in state tuition, not even room and board.  Since he transferred, he has been much more focused, gotten excellent grades, and written a grant to continue the extracurricular robotics program he was involved in at his community college.  He is a couple semesters from finishing college, and he'll finish around 24 rather than 22.  My parents are still a little concerned about him figuring out independent life skills like dealing with bills and such on top of academic/work stress, but they figure that it's more important that he does well in school so he can be competitive in the job market than figures these things out all at once.  It also crimps his dating life, so they figure that the real incentive to move out will happen when he finds a girl he wants to date seriously.

So I think pulling a kid out and doing the community college/work thing for a couple semesters can be really great.  You can identify what exactly the issue is: mental health, immaturity, not the right fit for college, lack of perspective, etc.  With some Fs and Ds on the transcript, some As from community college will probably be necessary to transfer to another reputable 4 year institution anyway.

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