Reply to High school senior daughter asked me "What's the point of all this?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Your daughter is correct.
[b]
There is no point to an elite college.... Unless your intention is to have rich friends.[/b]

The point to life is to be a good person, have good friends, be kind to strangers, give back to your community and (hopefully) have a close family.

A surgeon from Penn is no happier than a plumber, if you can afford a house, food, have close friends.

Once you have a certain amount of money, happiness does not increase  with more money and eventually declines.[/quote]

What? Or to have the kind of career that only an elite college can open for you?[b] I work in finance and I know there are banks and money managers who will *only* recruit from the ivy league.[/b] They do that because they can, because they get SO many applicants that they can easily afford to be choosy. I know finance is not most people's idea of a good time so substitute any competitive career (journalism, magazines, book publishing, politics, museum curating, certain high profile tech companies) for what I just said.[/quote]

Which just shows how ignorant the old school finance world is. Google did a study, after only hiring from elite schools. They changed their model and found student from elite schools were not better employees than students from state schools.

You need to educate yourself on the current trends in new business and hiring. advising your kids on knowledge that is 30 years old will not serve them well. [/quote]

Different PP here.  But those firms (law, finance, et cetera) that only recruit from Ivy Leagues *are* the rat race.  If OP's daughter is exhausted by the rat race as a teenager, what makes you think she'll be happy in that world?

If the point in running the rat race as a teen is to gain entry to an adult rat race where the pressure is even higher and more cutthroat, then it doesn't seem worth it.  I suspect that is OP's daughter's point.  Her question isn't necessarily, "What is the point?"  Her question is actually, "When does it end?  When does it get better?"

I'm the PP who said if I had a child who seemed to have the aptitude/ability and interest in a trade, I'd advocate getting training and certification in a trade but also getting a bachelor's from a relatively ("relative" being the key word) inexpensive college just for the sake of having the piece of paper.  That stems from figuring out what kind of career training will provide BOTH job security/stability AND work-life balance.  I believe that finding a career that hits that sweet spot is probably the best recipe for a happy life.

[/quote]

I agree. Going to an elite so you can get a job at a top bank or consulting firm sounds like an awful life.  You need to love money so much that you spend your life chasing it.[/quote]

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