For many young Americans, college costs far too much and delivers way too little — too little of what those students really want. Hence the phenomenon of thirtysomethings living at home playing video games while their student-loan debt mounts up.
It’s easy to make a bad choice. But a recent book will help students avoid bad choices: Choosing College: How to Make Better Decisions Throughout Your Life by Michael B. Horn and Bob Moesta. In today’s Martin Center article, Jenna Robinson writes about it.
Why do students so often choose schools and majors that end up doing them no good? Robinson writes:
Horn and Moesta say that one reason for the disconnect is that students’ reasons for choosing a college are actually ‘more complicated’ than just improving their employment opportunities. Unlike many college boosters, they also realize that for many people, college doesn’t work and for other people, college ends up not paying off. That understanding helps the authors give more realistic advice.
Students need this book, but education leaders also need it. Horn and Moesta argue that institutions of higher education are often organized to do the job that pleases faculty and administrators rather than the job that will satisfy their students. Some schools have already made the necessary changes and the authors discuss them.
Robinson sums up:
Both students and university leaders have a lot to learn from this book. Asking ‘why’ is the first step.