Across the country, millions of high school seniors and their families are debating a big question: Which college? Which college should I go to? Which college is best for me?
I’d like to propose a better question: Why college? Rather than picturing your student on this campus versus that one, try picturing them as an adult, going about their life after college. What do you want that adult to look like, and how can college help get them there? Are they engaged in their community? Getting established in a career that’s fulfilling and rewarding? Making friends? Going to grad school? Fast forward a few years. Are they buying a home? Getting married? Starting a family? Becoming financially secure?
The thing about college planning is, we focus so much on the which college question that we often overlook the why college question. And that’s a shame because why college opens doors, whereas which college often closes them. Whether you were not accepted to your top choice school, or you didn’t get the financial aid package you need and take out student loans or raid your retirement, or a year down the line a 17-year-old’s dream school turns into a 19-year-old’s nightmare, focusing on which school you’ll go to can lead to some unhappy times. Focusing on the adult you’re hoping to launch gives you a broader range of choices.
Here’s a statistic to consider: Every year, the Ivy Leagues admit a total of about 21,000 students. Every year, an average of around 4,000,000 students graduate from American high schools. That means that if you were in the top 1% of high school graduates, you still only had a 50% chance of getting into an Ivy League. And that assumes the Ivies only admitted the top students from American high schools; in fact, you also competed with international students, student athletes, and others with credentials desirable to the Ivies. By way of saying, dividing large applicant pools by small acceptance rates is going to yield a huge remainder of disappointment. If you got in, congratulations. If you didn’t, know that it’s the system, not you. And guess what? You— not your college– are the most important factor in determining who you become and what directions your life goes in.
There isn’t some small subset of colleges serving gatekeepers to the good life. In fact, study after study has shown that getting a college degree from any college dramatically increases your odds of having a better life, whether you define that success in financial or non-financial terms:
- College graduates earn on average more than $1 million more over their lifetime than do those without degrees, and the unemployment rate for college graduates is typically around half the rate for those without degrees.
- College graduates marry at higher rates and divorce at lower rates than do those without degrees.
- College graduates have lower rates of heart disease and type 2 diabetes than do those without degrees.
- College graduates volunteer, donate to charity, participate in organized religion and service or civic organizations and vote at higher rates than those without degrees. They even have more friends and are less likely to be lonely.
You’re right to want your child to reap the benefits of a college degree. But which college you attend doesn’t have nearly the lifelong benefit of whether or not you attend, and how you pay for it. Because there’s one group of students who doesn’t reap the benefits of a college degree: those who graduate with excessive student loan debt. Why college is about researching and evaluating your choices from the perspective of best fit for your student– academic, social and financial– rather than best fit for Instagram.
What’s the best fit? The place where your student engages fully in the campus community, academically and socially. Here’s a tip: the best way to make sure your student graduates on time is for them to choose a school where they will make friends and get involved. The best way to ensure their long-term success is to keep an eye out for the Big Six factors that have been shown to lead to lifelong success. The best way to make sure they’re not overburdened with student loans is to make a college choice that works for your budget.
It’s so much fun to picture your student on the different campuses they’ve been admitted to. Just make sure that while you do that, you also picture who you’re trying to create. Keeping “Why college?” at the forefront of your college decision will guide you to much better choices.
