<p>Most kids do not have horrible pressure for colleges. Where my current sophomore in high school goes to school, nearly every single kid goes to college but few really sweat the process. Most of the kids will have no problem getting accepted to their choices. So it is for most kids who are planning on going to college.</p>
<p>Where the screw starts to turn tightly is when you are looking at the highly selective colleges. When you are looking at schools that reject more kids than they accept, you are entering a world where you have a good chance of getting rejected. So that’s when things start getting tough. Of all of the colleges in this country, very few are so selective. It is the true minority of schools that cause this sort of stress.</p>
<p>I think part of the college frenzy that has become more widespread is because more kids are applying to these selective schools. It used to be that unless you had a connection of sorts to some of these “top” schools, you just did not apply to them. Now it is an open market and anyone with the grades and test scores is welcome to apply, and more kids than ever do. </p>
<p>The other issue is the cost of college. When I went to college many years ago, though we all complained about the cost of private colleges, the ratio of the cost to my father’s income was manageable with savings and financial aid. Now if I look at the pay scales and come up with what someone like my father would be making, the fraction is much larger, and there really is no federal financial aid other than loans available to help with this cost. There were some federal grants that really helped with my college costs that are no longer available to middle income families. In fact, all that is left is the Pell, which does not kick in to any but the lowest income families. A family with the bread winner having the same job my father had would not qualify for federal grants.</p>
<p>Many scholarship programs (National Merit especially comes to mind) are still geared to the old costs. In my day NMF got pretty much their first year tuition paid at the most expensive college. Now that $2500 hardly makes a dent in such schools. Big difference. A number of merit awards have not risen in amounts, still in the $1000 scale when costs have sky rocketed. Heck, I got $1000 for selling candy for our high school scholarship fund (other things taken into account too). I still see those type of awards but they are now literally peanuts compared to the costs of private colleges.</p>