Why College?

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Sometimes, most typically on mornings when I’ve chosen the right breakfast cereal, I have fleeting moments of confidence where I allow time for questions at the end of an information session. Recently a parent asked me: “So what advice will you be bringing back to your students at Concord Academy?” His question was a good one and although I’m not sure I’ve formed a fully satisfying answer yet, I’m certain of one thing: the central question “why go to college?” needs to be considered more often and more deeply by prospective students. This question may very well deserve hours of consideration.

Many of today’s students have been forced to think about college since day one. Have you ever seen college-themed baby books? Scary! And just yesterday my wife – while ordering a book for each of my 1^st and 2^nd grade kids through scholastic books – got me a book, too: Judy Moody Goes to College. (Man, does my wife love me or what?) And what’s with that new Olive Garden commercial that shows parents visiting their daughter at college and taking the roommates to dinner? Is our society obsessed with college? Perhaps college – particularly for the upper-crust of our society – is simply considered a given.

As I’ve been traveling for Tufts, I generally begin my presentations by posing this question. Please pardon my sweeping generalization, but the students at the preppiest of the Preppy McPrepster schools and those from the affluent public schools often struggle with this question a bit more than those from the inner-city and/or magnet schools. Is college-going (how’s that for an awful word?) simply discussed differently in the latter communities? Is there an assumption in well-heeled communities that college is going to happen, so the focus becomes “getting in?” and therefore the question of “why college?” is confronted less aggressively?

When pressed to answer this question in sessions, students usually respond with the following:

• to continue learning
• to earn a credential
• to get a better job
• to leave home, experience a bit more freedom before the (scary) freedom of “real” life

If I really press them, students will admit that going to college might also be fun. That “fun” is one of the main reasons they are looking forward to collegiate life. And how can it not be? Isn’t college the last chance you have to live almost exclusively with others your age? That is, of course, the last chance until you reach the retirement home. And that’s where the fun really beings…..

My challenge is that students need to be honest with themselves. If they are able confront this question with integrity and thoughtfulness, they might emerge from senior year with a reasonable set of goals, a reasonable set of priorities, and a reasonable idea of what they intend to accomplish.

I intend to have my students ruminate on this question regularly and with more depth than they have in the past. I want them to better appreciate the privilege of a college education. I want them to prepare to make better use of their time when they get to college. I want them to understand the economic term opportunity cost, and have them appreciate that the cost of heading immediately to college includes the opportunity cost of forgoing a gap-year opportunity.

Additionally, I hope students will think a little more deeply about the debates that have long engaged college faculties, those such as what is the value of distribution requirements. Many of my students are more than eager to learn in an environment where the institution tells you what to study. A lack of distribution requirement sounds great, but what are the real costs of surrounding yourself with like-minded students studying the same subject?

When I say the question, “why go to college?” deserves hours of consideration, perhaps I should help my students mired in the chaos and demands of senior year find more time and more space to simply think. Perhaps I should encourage more journal writing on the topic. Or maybe, just maybe, I can convince a few to start a blog.

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