Parental Worry - The College Degree
Parental Worry - The College Degree
How will your kids do? About 53 percent of kids who start college do not finish in four or even five years. Yes, I said over half won't finish college even in five years! So don't pull all your retirement money into their college fund. The chances are fifty-fifty that they will spend the college fund money and have nothing to show for it at the end. It is easier to get a college loan than money for retirement.
Why are kids not finishing college? In some cases, the money runs out, and the student has to go back to work to save enough to finish college. Students on sports scholarship become injured, and they are out, usually by junior year.
There are other reasons for the failure to finish.
In London, a top private school had the best record of getting kids into Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Those kids spoke three languages, played on the winning field hockey team, played instruments in the orchestra, and had straight As in the advanced program. Every minute of every day had been scheduled, so they emerged from the private school as the most exceptional students in Britain.
The problem was that when they got to Oxford or Cambridge, they couldn't budget their time. They couldn't look after themselves. They could go wild with parties, however, and they had the money for drug experimentation. Young adults who have been over programmed as children don't have a clue how to organize their schedules, balancing studying time versus free time. It's a disaster.
Thus, this perfect private school that turned out perfect students had the highest first-year dropout rate from both Oxford and Cambridge. More than half of the students left. Self-sufficient students with lesser accomplishments but who are organized fare much better.
College RAs, or resident student advisors, have told me that they observe consistent problems with entering freshmen. "It's always the rich kids who mess up," they say. College becomes two years of parties, until Mon and Dad cut off the funds for alcohol and recreational drugs and the school expels them for bad academics.
Another group that has problems are those who have had extreme discipline at home. Once they are on their own, they go wild. One young woman bought every drug she could find on the first day in the dorm; she overdosed by 4:00PM, ended up in the hospital, and lost her student scholarship. Her parents had never allowed her to go to parties; she had a 9:00PM curfew on weekends, was never allowed to ride in baby strollers and car seats with friends, and was always chaperoned when she went to the movies or on shopping trips. She had been completely cocooned out of fear for her safety, and it left her with no skills or self-control.
The final group that has problems at college are the helpless kids who always wanting a baby trend double jogging stroller. Mom and Dad did everything for them, helped them with their homework, and fought their battles, so when they need to discuss their first paper for history 101 with the teacher, Mom flies out to help Junior talk about his paper. This is a new paranoid parent-generation problem that is proving to be a real difficulty for colleges. Some parents are even renting apartments in the college town so they can live there and be there for "their baby." And that is just what they have created: a baby trend double stroller.
It sounds as if I am blaming the parents, but the fact is that you need to do a lot more than just pay the tuition to get your child ready for college.
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