“How do employers look at college names?” is a typical question parents ask us, when trying to narrow their senior’s choices for application. Two meanings emerge from this question:
- What’s the value of a college degree?
- How, if at all, is value different for different colleges?
The value in college question will be answered differently by parent than by student. And, while parents hold the purse strings, kids are going to live the college experience. All need to work together and open a continuous and rigorously honest conversation. Sometimes, those conversations start with each individual deciding what s/he wants for their own or son’s/daughter’s experience. Then, coming together and developing a consensus…over time.
These questions are not light. The conversations may not be easy. Yet, with 17 years of sports tournaments, piano lessons, late night homework sessions, worrying about the right teacher, endless (re)readings of Harry Potter…(getting the picture?) PLUS $100,000 + in tuition and college expense PLUS all future salary PLUS 60% of all students who start college don’t graduate (The New Yorker, 5/28/2012)…why would the conversations be anything but serious and painstakingly considered?
