The college experience: how romantic?

[Beliavsky]

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@Gwen Fairfax

I think yes, very romantic, in the classical sense. You’re in a small city made up almost entirely of young people. You have a furnished room, 3 meals a day, and more freedom than you’ve ever had in your life, or are likely to have again. You are studying something you chose, and your main responsibility is to be true to yourself and your own aspirations. You’re sitting in the library window studying and you see that intriguing young man/woman scuffing home across campus in the lamplight…etc. etc. etc. Of course there is disappointment and uncertainty and sometimes heartbreak. But you’re so young that there’s always another chance. That’s the very definition of romantic for me.

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<p>This is such an appealing vision that it entices to college many young people who do not have the desire or even the ability to study at the college level (as Charles Murray explains in the book “Real Education”). I wonder how the path starting with an entry level job open to high school graduates can be made more appealing. If it is not, the advice to “get a job” will seem much harsher to 18-year-olds than “go to college”, and many will go for the wrong reasons and not get much out of it.</p>