<p>From my observations, perceptions of whether college education is mostly/merely job training or whether it’s more for intellectual sharpening/development with job training as a nice bonus is more cultural than strictly on basis of SES. </p>
<p>For instance, I found the college mostly as job training idea more common among families from sub-cultures which tend towards anti-intellectualism which cuts across all SES classes. Quite a few of them live in well-to-do suburbs and happen to be neighbors of well-to-do families of college classmates/colleagues who don’t agree with such views and sometimes find them revolting to their personal educational values. </p>
<p>This is underscored by the fact that I know plenty of college students/recent undergrads from lower-income backgrounds…including first-generation college students whose otherwise extremely financially practical/prudent parents/families would be livid if their children viewed college education as merely “job training” or a route to riches and had the same outlook on education as the families of college classmates/colleagues who hold a much broader view of higher education’s purpose. Some of their parental occupations include farming, skilled/unskilled labor(union and non), etc. </p>
<p>Many of them ended up not only getting gainful employment, but also much more out of their educations as a result which enabled success in all areas of their lives. </p>
<p>In some cases, the parents of their first-generation college students/graduates were so inspired by their children’s example that they enrolled themselves into college. One such parent ended up sharing the same graduation year as her younger daughter. :)</p>
<p>Lastly, I speak as someone who was from a low-income family and attended a respectable LAC on a near-full ride college scholarship.</p>
<p>Job market prospects for college graduates are important, but with a few exceptions such as nursing, college is not “job training” in the sense that colleges can teach what is directly relevant for a student’s first job. Neither the student or the college knows what the job will be, and even if they did, an employer can train workers more efficiently since it knows what a job entails. A lot of the career value of college comes from signaling. Students have four years to show employers and themselves what they can achieve in academic and extracurricular pursuits. </p>
<p>I find this discussion very odd. Is it only me who has observed that some rich people obnoxiously flaunt their wealth, and others do not? And is it really so hard to tell the difference? I don’t know if GWU has a higher percentage of flaunters or not–but I can tell you which high schools in my area are highest on the flaunt scale.</p>
<p>It’s all in how you behave, and how you talk about your stuff. My son had a really rich roommate who didn’t flaunt his wealth, although it was clear to everybody he was loaded. He sat around in his underwear all the time–but his white T-shirt was from Comme des Garcons.</p>
<p>I also agree that it’s important for parents who are well-off to make sure that their kids understand that some of their friends and roommates will not have the same resources, and to be sensitive to that with respect to food, entertainment, travel, common furnishings and supplies for the dorm, etc.</p>
<p>We don’t intend to provide our children so much money that they appear rich as college students, but the disrespect conveyed by lounging around a dorm room in one’s underwear disturbs me more than wearing fancy clothes.</p>
Disrespect to whom? To the other guys living in the dorm, many of whom are lounging around in underwear which has been turned inside out to get another day’s wear out of it? To the beer cans littering the hallway on Saturday night? This is a boys’ dorm, not the Plaza.</p>
<p>I agree with Beliavsky (shock of shocks). Come on - sitting around in your underwear? I get lounging around in a t-shirt and shorts or sweats, but underwear? That’s gross to me.</p>
<p>Well, they were boxer shorts, not briefs. But this guy could have lounged around in a mink dressing gown if he’d wanted to.</p>
<p>My point was just that there some very rich people who simply never make a point of the fact that they are rich, even though they might have and use very expensive stuff. On the other hand, there are others who always make a point of how expensive their stuff is.</p>
<p>Agreed. And back to GWU - a casual observer who is observing students in coffee shops and cafeterias and the like might indeed observe that there are a good amount of designer “things” (as in handbags, shoes, etc.). However, simply wearing / using that stuff doesn’t mean that the person is making a point as to how expensive their stuff is.. As far as I could tell, girls who reach into a Target handbag to pay for their coffee seem to be the same as girls who reach into a Louis Vuitton handbag to pay for their coffee – they are focused on getting out their money for the coffee, not in exclaiming, “And look here! Look how expensive the bag is that I’m diving into, in order to pay for this coffee!” That’s the projection (stated earlier on) that I object to - that using is flaunting. It can be, but it takes a lot more than using to be flaunting.</p>
<p>^My daughter, like her mother and grandmother before her, is a highly trained deal seeker. She loves thrift shops and is incredibly careful with money–both hers and mine–especially now that she has a part-time job. Last summer she went to France with her dad and stepfamily and she was the only one of the four kids who came back with almost all of the souvenir money that had been handed out at the start of the trip. She bought one small gift for her best friend in Paris and that was it.</p>