College Costs: Part 4. Is It Worth It? AUGUST 3, 2017

My daughters are now going to college, or preparing to go to college.  Both are attending private institutions with some merit scholarship assistance.  For the two of them, I'm looking at spending approximately a total of $250,000 as opposed to $560,000 had they not received any scholarships at all. We are prepared to use our savings that we've put into their 529 College Savings Plans since the time they were born to fund this endeavor.  Yes we have the savings, but is this ivory tower college experience even worth it? Are there alternatives?

Studies have found that a college graduate consistently out-earn one without a college degree. So generally, college should be a goal for young adults, although I sometimes even question the value of the college education one receives in many of the nation's colleges. Nowadays, the trend in evaluating colleges is to look at whether they will deliver a meaningful return on the investment rather than solely looking at their selectivity and reputation.  This means looking at the income graduates from those schools earn after they enter the working world. I am all for exploring possibilities and areas of study during college, but if a parent is going to pay for four years of expensive exploration, they should have the right to talk to their kids about expectations and how best to take advantage of the resources their colleges offer in research, internships, jobs, etc.

If the kid have absolutely no idea about what they want to do, I would wholeheartedly support the idea of having them take a gap year before enrolling in college so that they can work, travel, observe, before deciding on what they wish to spend the money to learn in college.  Some colleges such as Washington University in Saint Louis support their admits taking a gap year before enrolling, but most do not because in selecting their entering class, they are not very flexible in allowing their admitees to just take time off and not start right away.  However, after completing two years of college though,  Daughter No. 1 had a very easy time getting USC to support her taking time off from college after her sophomore year. Now the question is whether she will return to college after experiencing success at work.

Alternatively, students and their families should look at their states' public universities.  In California, we have great public universities from the internationally top ranked UC system to the Cal State System that is very egalitarian and much cheaper, to the Community College System.  But when going to public universities, even highly selective ones is sometimes considered a "stigma" and when the gurus in the business of college all declare that private colleges are the way to go, it often becomes a huge dilemma for parents.

Take my daughters for example, one got into UCLA, and the other got into UC Berkeley, but after hearing arguments that those giant public universities are not very flexible for a student to change majors, that it is difficult to get the classes students need or want in order to graduate, that there are required classes that has over 400 students in them and students interact only with Teachers Assistants, that students "sink or swim" with no help, we acquiesced. After all, we went to private universities, so how can we deny our kids the same if we can afford it? Even if we see through the propaganda of the private universities, how can we insist that our bright eyed and hopeful kids who've been sold the private school dream school coolaid to be just as pragmatic?

The downside of America's college selection process is that it guilts parents into thinking illogically, as if the tens of thousands of students in the public university systems somehow are all failing and cannot thrive in society.  Which of course, is not true at all.  Parents are so invested in their kids futures that they buy into the private university propaganda that they provide more one-on-one support for their students, that they will have a better outcome if only you save a little more to pay more. So parents slave away and save to pay for that little extra, as if all those years of making sure our kids do well in elementary school, middle and high schools mean nothings, that as good a student as they are, they are somehow more fragile and doomed to fail in a public university setting. Which is bullsh**.

There are some kids who would have been ecstatic getting into the top UC's. Not ours.  Somehow, having gone to private schools, art schools, and having parents who wholeheartedly supported and funded their visions and endeavors, they look at their private school and art school peers and start to think that they are the elites, that going to public universities would somehow give them less bragging rights. Worst of all, it's as if the more coddling and privileged they are, the more coddling and privilege they demand of college to the point that they expect things handed to them and refuse to do the hard work traditionally expected of a college student in navigating college, learn how to select courses, take advantage of resources, find a work-study job, and god forbid, help others. Of course, there is a whole industry that caters to this privileged families hopes and fears.

I feel that the Western first world ideal of the philosopher scholar training that a university should provide is pretty much dead. (Maybe this is not just a first world idea because even in Asia, we also have the Confusian ideal on how to train a moral and learned man). In a global economy where competition comes from everywhere, where people's jobs are more and more specialized, where high schools no longer prepare kids in vocational training, universities now must take on the responsibility and expectation of teaching students marketable skills.  It is no wonder that some of the top ranked universities in terms of providing solid returns on investment are those that specialize in science, technology and engineering training.  Those schools that stick only with the traditional liberal arts education yet charge students an arm and an leg and advice students to spend more to specialize in graduate school, are doing students a disservice and I would argue that they are questionable in value to many families. Yet when a high school senior gets bombarded with glossy solicitation brochures from every school out there, making the smart and right choice is just grotesquely difficult.

Making smart college choices should start with the parents. When we have kids ready to enter into the education system, we suddenly adopt the mentality that it's a battle right from the get go to get them into the right elementary school, the most competitive middle school, high school, magnet school, private school, summer school, research, and enrichment programs so they get into the best colleges to have a leg up in the game of life. It's no wonder that our kids are conditioned into thinking that if they do all that's asked of them, they should be rewarded with the expensive private college experience. When we then say they can't go because it's too expensive or not worth the expense, it's a huge let down, and they are right.  We can't tell our kids to explore and broaden their horizons and then tell them that they can't pursue their dream subject matter because it's impracticable.

What should a parent impart to their children about college expectation and goals? How much should the children expect their parents to pay for their college education? I would love to have your opinion and input.

My next blog will be about what I would do about my education if I did it all over again.