While Dr. Seuss’ book “Oh the Places You’ll Go” is a popular high school graduation gift, when it comes to paying for college, I think it’s more important to have had discussions with 9th and 10th graders about “Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An antidote to the college admissions mania” by Frank Bruni.

It’s changed

For those of you in the current generation of parents with kids in elementary school through high school, the college application process, college admissions, paying for college, and the college attendance experience, bears very little resemblance to what you remember. And not, despite what your kids are telling you, because your memory is failing. No, it’s changed a lot since then. Prices have been going up faster than inflation since before I started college, which means for more than a quarter century now. What our generation could pay for with some parental help plus a part time job, and our parents’ generation’s parents just paid for out of pocket (if college was even required at all), has now become a long term burden on both the parents and children in terms of savings, cash flow, and then paying down student loan debt.

Which is why it’s important to re-frame college from “if you get in, we’ll figure out how to pay for it”, to “what about college is important to you?” And that’s where a book like “Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be” comes into play.

One advantage of being a high achieving student pursuing a quality public university (instead of an Ivy), is that students who are above ordinary stand out, accel, and build a self-perception of themselves as competent. Another is that the price is usually much more affordable, as the Ivies don’t give merit aid.

“Does a prestigious college make you successful in life? Or do you do that for yourself?”

Peter Osterlund’s 60second Recap, quoted in Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be

Accessibility

There are so many people trying to attend a not much bigger than it used to be college pool, that prestigious colleges have become incredibly selective. If your college application doesn’t read like the life time achievements of a Nobel laureate, then setting your sights elsewhere are more realistic. For example, for the class of 2018, Stanford accepted just 5% of their amazing applicants. At Yale, a late 1980’s acceptance rate of ~20% turned into a 2014 acceptance rate of ~6%. Over that same time period, Northwestern University’s acceptance rate fell from over 40% to under 13%. Even major public universities acceptance rates have dropped by 20% or more (as in from 56% to 32%, for the University of Michigan). These declines in acceptance rates have been accelerating, dropping faster in the last 10 years than in the first 15 of those years. And compare that to the 1984-1994 timeframe, where acceptance rates were increasing slightly.

What is driving this decline in acceptance rates? It’s three-fold. First, more international students are coming to the United States for college. Second, more American students are going to college. And third, it’s now so easy to apply to many colleges, that instead of applying to 2 desired schools and a safety school like today’s parents did, now one in 4 college-bound students apply to >=7 schools!

Unfortunately, Americans mostly measure college worth by measuring its acceptance rates and other measures of selectivity and prestige. And colleges drive their prices up accordingly, with amenities the likes of which today’s parents never saw on their college campuses, and our parents’ parents would never have dreamed of.

The delusion of rankings

Colleges also up their perceived prestige by targeting publications of college rankings. Rankings utilize a limited number of criteria, many of which may not be the criteria that are important to any individual applicant – “specific academic offerings, intellectual and social climate, ease of access to faculty, international opportunities and placement rates for careers or for graduate and professional school.” Rankings “measure what you can count easily, and then often fail to measure what really counts.” And rankings tend to be self-perpetuating.

“It’s a teenage thing. We’re a bunch of lemmings. There is no best. There is no best.“

Marilee Jones, former admissions dean for MIT, quoted in Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be

Also impacting ratings, in a non-useful way, is how much schools spend per student (yes, I already mentioned this above. But it deserves re-addressing). Unfortunately, there’s no requirement for that money to be well spent, so instead of improving academics that money is often spent on fancy fitness facilities, expensively beautiful communal spaces, amenities, and non-academic services.

One good thing that does come out of rankings is you can use it as a way to classify colleges into one of two main types – large universities, vs smaller liberal arts colleges. As they have very different temperaments, your student will likely wish to target one or the other of these categories.

And there is still a career edge to be gained from elite universities – some employers essentially only visit and interview students from these highly selective schools. But if your child isn’t headed in that direction, then the benefit of going to those colleges is lower.

Income and other outcomes: School vs Major

Something most kids don’t want to think about is that their major likely makes more of an impact on their future earnings than their choice of college does. Similarly, major makes a bigger impact on post-college employment rates in their field. The where is less important than the what. Workplace engagement and well-being doesn’t vary much by choice of college, as measured by purpose, social, physical, financial, and community dimensions [1, 2].

Is it still possible?

A good fit at an affordable price can still be found for your student to go to college. But it takes more deliberate effort than it used to in your college days. And that’s a discussion you should be starting to have with your teen now. Maybe hand them a copy of Bruni’s book to kick off that conversation.