<p>I may know some of those realtors already.</p>
<p>Following your train of thought…Would you say those families just don´t know better, maybe ignorant? Or do you think you have more information? Different objectives for your kids? Different values?</p>
<p>Those families probably don’t Stu- er, I mean stew- over the whole education issue, oldfort. I mean, if they are smart and motivated, they will do fine at the local high school, right?</p>
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<p>I try my best not to pass judgment on the intelligence or motives of others, lest I also be judged.</p>
<p>I have friends who think homeschooling provides a priceless educational opportunity and other friends, urban pioneers, who think having their children attend substandard public schools provides a different sort of priceless education. I don’t think it is possible for either to “prove” their POV. And generally they aren’t evangelicals. For me, it is fascinating to discuss different approaches to educating our children. </p>
<p>Right now in my very rural community is a child who read and did basic math as a two year old, not because anyone especially tutored him, but because he is an unexpected late-in-life-blessing that Daddy promised to raise this go round. 
And he’s been hanging out with Daddy and Daddy’s pals (farmers & land developers) since diapers and is always treated like a little man. He is going to start the local public school in the fall and I don’t know what he is going to do there. It will be interesting to see how someone adjusts to kindergarten after going to work for five years. But he needs to be part of his peer group in the community and it will be difficult for his folks to accomplish it any other way. And no matter how smart this kid is, he will not be applying to HYPS (and schools like that) but to the public flagship because his parents and siblings went there AND because that is the team the family roots for. He will probably be extremely well traveled as are his much older siblings.</p>
<p>I’m afraid that strategy hasn’t worked! in reply to annasdad)</p>
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<p>All of those are possibilities. I’d also add that there are many who genuinely don’t see a value in education beyond merely getting a ticket punched for vocational or other reasons. Whether it is a private elite, topflight OOS, flagship state, average/mediocre private, or directional state campus, it’s all the same to them. </p>
<p>There’s also the case that some families who do see a value in education beyond mere ticket punching may feel there’s little/no difference between an elite/respectable public/private college and particular actual “podunk” private/local state colleges because they didn’t realize the academic reputation has declined drastically compared to how it was back when they were in high school/college.</p>
<p>You, know; With all the money that DS spent (his money) and not spent for being in college (free masters & university staff researcher), I hope he built a book of names that he could actually go to for a potential spouse. He certainly had the opportunity. We’ll see. </p>
<p>While me, state university, and then bingo.</p>
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<p>Perhaps because the available research shows that it really is pretty much all the same, at least in terms of the quality of the education available?</p>
<p>I hesitate to jump into this discussion since emotions on this run high each and every time the same thread is reinvented.</p>
<p>Dot com rise and bust, the unbridled stock market rise and subsequent fall, the housing bubble - and its’ rather loud ‘pop’, and relatively recently, the run on elite colleges with the often associated debt…IMH (podunk U graduate) O are all examples of herd mentality and what happens when the heard fuels it’s own fear and no longer has the ability to see where or why it is running. </p>
<p>I do not mean this as an insult to any poster on either side of the debate. It just seems that we as a species, or maybe where we are as a society today, are easily manipulated into a sense of fear. Fear of scarcity, a fear of missing out on the ‘next best thing’. What else could possibly persuade so many normally sane folks to take out mortgages they could not afford? Why did so many rush into risky market investments they did not understand? Sure we can blame it on manipulations by advertising forces, but could it because once a critical mass buys into a certain belief the herd mentality takes over and more and more follow?</p>
<p>Several pages ago on this tread the values of Kia’s and Beemers were being debated. Was it worth the price difference, the quality of one verses the other and that ever elusive “experience”…etc. It seems that this missed the point. Neither Kia’s nor Beemers are in limited supply. You want one, go get one. Be happy with your choice. But what happens when a shortage (perceived or real) gets into the picture? Curiously, when Toyota was experiencing its’ rash of quality problems and subsequent shortages - the cost of several used models all of a sudden rose and were selling so quickly it was dazzling. Now, was that used car any better in quality or value before the shortage of newer vehicles? No, but the herd went into panic mode.</p>
<p>It seems a critical mass has bought into the ‘elite at all costs’ mentality and the flames of fear are being fanned more and more each year. Is it worth the cost? The answer is different if the $$$'s are chump change in your checking account or if the experience will leave you with years of debt. </p>
<p>College is only 4 (well okay maybe 5 or 6) years in a life. How much time is spent agonizing over these years to the detriment of spending time looking at how life will be afterwards. How many childhoods are truncated in the effort to groom the perfect candidate. If where these years are spent is really, truly such an ultimately determining and insurmountable factor in the rest of our children’s lives, then maybe it is time to panic.</p>
<p>Cobrat: “There’s also the case that some families who do see a value in education beyond mere ticket punching may feel there’s little/no difference between an elite/respectable public/private college and particular actual “podunk” private/local state colleges because they didn’t realize the academic reputation has declined drastically compared to how it was back when they were in high school/college.”</p>
<p>Maybe you know people like that, but in my experience people who do care about education might chose a more “podunk” school simply because the others are just too expensive. So many also want to stick near home (I never felt that way).</p>
<p>Great post dietz! Tied for first with eastcoastcrazy’s a while back</p>
<p>*College is only 4 (well okay maybe 5 or 6) years in a life. How much time is spent agonizing over these years to the detriment of spending time looking at how life will be afterwards. If where these years are spent is really, truly such an ultimately determining and insurmountable factor in the rest of our children’s lives, then maybe it is time to panic. *</p>
<p><em>clap clap clap</em></p>
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<p>AD, that is a stu pendous idea! :)</p>
<p>Dietz, i won’t disagree with your thesis, but if the top 50 schools in the country accepted all applicants AND raised their tuitions at the same time, the line of applicants would stretch for miles…not sure this is a herd mentality at all,not like the housing debacle…</p>
<p>nevahmind…</p>
<p>At the end of the day, won’t most students bloom where they are planted, whether it be 10k or 60k?</p>
<p>GA2012MOM…yes, I think they will. If the soil up to that point in their lives has been nutrient rich, if they’ve been given time to grow at their own rate, if they haven’t been espaliered and contorted to fit some idealized form…yes, I think they will bloom quite nicely!</p>
<p>Ooooo! An espalier reference! Let’s do hothouse!</p>
<p>I like the Atlantic Article on Orchids and Dandelions.</p>
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<p>The weasel word here is ‘can’. It doesn’t mean ‘will’. </p>
<p>Note all the qualifiers–motivated student (not just just ‘any student’), almost any college (not all colleges), can (not will). The qualifiers water down the actual claim being made. </p>
<p>The claim here isn’t that all students will get a high quality education at all colleges. It’s relativized to a particular type of student and a particular type of college (though it’s unclear what those types are), and it’s not a guarantee even with that particular type of student and that particular type college, a high quality education will be had.</p>
<p>But isn’t that the claim that many of the ‘opponents’ here are trying to express–that the education you will get depends on the qualities of the student relativized to the qualities of the particular college?</p>
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<p>Surely that course selection is sufficient to prepare a motivated student to get a high quality education at almost any college, including the mid-level selectivity directional state universities, right?</p>
<p>A student at that school will have access to English courses, math through precalculus (which is all that is expected by schools other than a very few of those elite schools that are “too expensive”), all three foundational sciences (biology, chemistry, and physics), and art and music (and presumably the history and social studies that nearly all states have as a high school graduation requirement).</p>