It is also the case that the vast majority of students dramatically overestimate their qualifications for elite schools, and are woefully ignorant of the competition. Most base their perspective on their local high school, where they excelled. But most of those actually admitted to elites have state, national, and international recognition that goes far beyond any local school achievement. A “5” on the BC calculus test is not anywhere in the same league as an AMC qualifier, much less an IMO winner. The most elite schools have their pick of those, and there are plenty to choose from.
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It was more that it was a headache, actual guests are a hell of a lot fussier than students, you had to keep staff around over the summer, and the financial pressure to make everything into a revenue center didn’t yet exist.
Not everything in the world is arranged by an economist or a lawyer.
Not at my slightly better than statistically average public high school. Not 20 years ago when I started there and not now. We have a couple most years (not all) who try for top level, but the vast, vast majority want to go to some sort of more typical school, either public (where most go) or private (since in PA top students can often get it to a similar cost). College fairs have many schools come that are rarely mentioned on CC. They attract many students.
If I were to take a poll at my school for “dream school” I’d be placing my bets on Penn State to win.
If my school is probably at 60-70 if all public schools were ranked from 1-100 with 100 the best, do you seriously think it’s any different at schools ranked less than mine (allowing for regional differences)? I doubt it.
You’re talking about listening to the chat from those who couldn’t afford dream school and had to settle. No doubt they exist, but they certainly aren’t the majority out there. Have you ever listened to the multitude of others?
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What I hear from other parents and my kids’ friends is that the private schools they were accepted at didn’t give enough money to be even remotely affordable (BC, NYU, Villanova) and the state flagship gave them nothing. I have twins (plus several others), one who slacked a bit in HS, 3.6 UGPA, 30 ACT, the other gave it her all, 3.9 UGPA, 34 ACT, both got into Rutgers business school with no merit. She could’ve been accepted at more selective schools, but they’re too expensive. Granted, she has developed great study and time management skills, him not so much, but it’s a little defeating. Twenty or so years ago, she would’ve received so much more being in state, making all of her hard work worth it.
I don’t believe BC or NYU were ever well-known for giving great aid. We don’t get kids who consider Villanova very often enough to know (can’t think of any right off hand).
Penn State is awful for aid too. Pitt is only better for very high stats, and then it depends if one is “lucky.”
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Even if some portion of debt is cancelled for certain debtors, the bigger issue is can the costs of at least public college be reduced to a more manageable level? It’s fine to throw out that the public should all chip in to fund public education…but 1. not everyone will support it and 2. if it’s only funded at the federal level possibly millions of people won’t be funding it. Will it require a relatively significant overhaul of what many kids in the US associate with a college experience, i.e. the UK model? If yes, then you also run the potential danger of exacerbating the public/private divide even more. Those with the funds and those who win the FA lottery will get the full private residential college experience and everyone else will get the Canadian/UK version.
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I think many first time college student parents don’t initially realize how much the costs have increased since they attended college. If their kids have high test scores, almost perfect grades and are at the tippy top of their classes, the lack of merit can be surprising. Also around here, since it’s such a high COL area, parents are again shocked with how little FA their children are offered, I hear this all of the time.
No doubt. I’m nowhere near saying college is affordable. I’m one who thinks everyone should get up to 27K to support post high school education (college or trade schools).
I’m only saying that most of our kids go to state schools or “typical” (meaning not Top Whatever) private schools quite happily rather than “everyone” is gunning for Top Whatever. And in PA, since our public schools aren’t as affordable as many other states, our top students often find similar offers from private schools - just not private schools like BC or NYU. Which one they end up attending is still their preference.
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Happy to have a discussion with them. Just hope they bring more facts and reality than anger, bitterness and jealousy.
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I’d really recommend paying more attention. I know it isn’t what you want to hear. But this is a very large generation – keep in mind that at this point young people are outnumbering Boomers at the polls, and their participation rate’s still relatively low. They’ve had high childhood poverty rates, relative to other recent generations; they’re projected to be minority white within a few years, making them the first minority-white generation. They’ve also grown up in an era of relentless test prep, and had not only “go to college” but “go to this amazing college that we’re marketing relentlessly to you” drummed into them since middle school at least. Their curricula have been heavily guided by the College Board, which means that their foundational-documents and US-history backgrounds are remarkably good, if an unprecedented monoculture. They’ve been stepping up politically, loudly, even in childhood to an extent not seen in a very long time, and they’re pissed. Not anxious. Not anxious to find themselves. Pissed. They arrive at college that way, so it ain’t us doing some sort of grievance indoctrination. They’re free-range internet chickens, and they can look around and see what their parents go through, what they go through. And then they can come here, and see how you guys talk.
That’s a big thing for them, I find. They really want to believe that adults are trying to do right by them. Some adults, somewhere. And as they look around, at a remarkably young age, what they see is that there’s not a hell of a lot of reason to believe it. They see that they’re more honest and sensible than most adults are willing to be, far less greedy, and far more willing to think about other people and do the right thing.
At which point older people who don’t want to hear the message will try to say that every young generation is like this. If it were, we’d be in better shape now. They’re highly cooperative people. Their aspirations in general are personally modest and socially large. And they’re practical and hardworking to an extent that I’ve never seen before in young people. They remind me powerfully of my Depression-childhood grandparents, only better-educated and far more knowledgeable about other people’s lives.
When I say “think about what you’re posting here” I don’t mean that I think they’re coming for you personally. I mean that you’re part of a class of people. CC in a composite sense represents a class of people, all speaking remarkably candidly. This young generation will, shortly, have a great deal of political power, and they’re going to be redistributive in many ways. To be frank, you’ll need as much goodwill from them as you can get. I don’t think these message boards are helpful in that direction.
They and their older siblings and cousins are currently burdened with crushing debt. That’s the reality they live with. They have the debt not because they were profligate, but because of adult choices about how we’d arranged their world by the time they got to 18. I would recommend getting behind their eyes and seeing that before talking about cancelling student loans.
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Somehow we’ve moved from cancelling college debt to making sure all kids get a grand college experience at a top school for free.
I don’t think we are ever going to have a society where there aren’t people that have advantages because of their hard work or their families hard work/luck. I don’t think the majority of Americans care that their is a class of very successful people. In the end we all make decisions in life and some of those decisions are good and help us improve and some are bad and can set us back. I personally don’t have everything and am happy. I do want better for my kids and have worked hard to provide that.
I would like to see college more affordable. I saved for the last 18 years to send my kids to school. An instate public because that’s what’s affordable and it’s a good school. There are certainly other affordable options out there too.
We all have limitations. I’m sorry that student loans are a burden to many. My mortgage, car payment, utility bills, food etc are also a burden. I found out early in life that I had to work hard to get things. Some things are worth going into debt for and the right education or training is one of them but it must be done smartly.
I’m still not for outright loan forgiveness. I don’t see it solving the longer term issue and in fact I see it making it worse.
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They will be the ones paying for their planned utopia. It’s easy to spend other people’s money when you haven’t started making any yet. It’s easy to point fingers and blame other people for whatever your grievance du jour. It’s much more challenging to gain the support needed to implement that change and be willing to fund it. Talk is cheap.
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Remember that they’ve started off pretty poor, and that they’re aware that they’ll be paying a lot of debts run up by older people as well. They also look at us and older people and see mountains of cash, and a tax structure that’s tilted more strongly toward the wealthy than we’ve seen in the entire postwar era.
When you say they’ll have to gain the support, they walk farther into being the majority every day.
I’ve talked about this for a very long time, but it really does not pay to short young people in favor of the old, especially when there’s a whole lot of the young. They win on numbers alone before you’re ready to go. If I had a mountain of cash to protect, I’d be out in front hollering for loan forgiveness.
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I’d be very impressed if these kids know anything about tax structure other than what they hear on various media outlets about how unfair it is.
Agreed but if you think the wealthy will just stand by and hand it over, think again. They’ll figure out ways to protect it, transfer it etc…and there isn’t enough disposable wealth in the country to pay for all the wish list items of this up and coming majority. And demonizing wealthy people won’t help their cause. If you take away the incentive to work hard then everyone ends up worse off. Cooperation only gets you so far before the bills get in the way.
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My 25 year old college grad who is starting grad school in the fall was very impressed that I knew there was a box on her W2 that told her how much she paid in advance for state taxes. Yep, I’m a genius.
This kid was a LOT more liberal before she started paying taxes (and she still doesn’t pay much). She was all for ‘free’ government programs until she had to start paying for them.
My other kids has always been a conservative. When she was 5 she asked me to pay ‘that extra’ (sales tax) when she bought something with her allowance as she didn’t think it was fair that the store said it cost $1 and it really cost $1.08 since she was just a kid. She had the money, but just felt it was unfair. When she learned about FICA? Oh was she mad!
Both would like their student loans forgiven because, well, who wouldn’t? They aren’t thinking about the long term and their taxes, just that they wouldn’t have to make that monthly payment.
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I think you are wrong to assume you know how this generation is going to yield their “political power.” Do you have kids in high school currently? Although they may be more socially liberal in many ways -this generation is actually quite fiscally conservative in much of their thinking. Speaking with them- they are surprisingly much more conservative than I ever was at that age & have a better grasp of the fact that “free stuff” just means higher taxes in some form down the road. They are better at recognizing the hypocrisy of the ruling class/elites and are less afraid to question things. Yes they are pissed - pissed that they will be paying for how fiscally irresponsible the generations before them have been. I find that they are much more likely than the generation before them, to actually understand educational debt & to consider this in choosing a college. I am hearing of more actually considering trades or CC than I did even 4-5 years ago. Fewer are “chasing their passion,” and more are looking for majors with a greater ROI, and careers that are less likely to be out-sourced or replaced by AI.
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I’m frankly shocked and appalled that an educator at the undergrad and grad level would make the types of opinion-based, factually unsupportable sweeping generalizations that you’ve been making on this and the now-closed thread. Wow!
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What do the kids you teach say about the kids who took the big scholarship or attended community college and graduate with no debt? How about the ones who went directly to work or the military? Have they asked those kids if they would be willing to pay for some kids to go to private colleges, while they took a different economic path? How do those kids factor into their worldview?
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OP, while the passion of the young is refreshing, it is neither unprecedented nor necessarily effective. Until young people start to vote in significant numbers ( and despite heroic efforts to get them to do so, progress is minimal), public policy will always cater to those who actually show up to elect representatives, who are mostly old.
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