How Much Is Too Much?

A friend of mine recently announced that her son not only got his first acceptance letter from a university, but she bragged (and rightfully so!) about his scholarship earnings as well. Go, kid!

It made me remember what it was like when I was applying to school. The process was stressful, mortifying and expensive. I forget exactly how many schools I applied to...erm...a long time ago, but there were a few with application fees and then subsequently having to go to visit the schools, not to mention worrying about those damn SAT scores.

Although it seems like it wasn't too long ago, in the years that have passed, the millennials of this generation have a lot more to worry about. Or namely, their parents. See, my friend has three children and subsequently three college educations to worry about. Well, she and her husband. Yet, what stressed her husband and her out in school, what stressed me out and what will stress her kids out are completely different. I can't even imagine, being a parent, having to worry about that but potentially not alarming your child as to the stresses of worrying about a college education.

Hell, I thought education was expensive just in the last decade or so. Now, we hear stories about how students are financing their educations with drug dealing. And we're not even talking "kind bud" as my crazy hippie uncles called it...we are talking HARD DRUGS like Adderall and cocaine! Hey, I gotta give these students some credit: they managed to keep a 3.5 GPA and even mused aloud that they hoped a settlement was forthcoming as to not ruin their chances for graduate school.

Yet, there was some implication that the drug financing was there to supplement their college costs. Needless to say, Columbia University is one of the more prestigious schools out there, and the costs are commensurate with that reputation. But succumbing to selling drugs to pay school bills?

How much is TOO much? I am still paying off a student loan that I had while I was in school, several years after I graduated. I am fortunate enough to have completed a masters program that was paid for by an employer. Costs keep rising at for-profit institutions, and for what? So kids can enter a workforce with double-digit unemployment? Where an internship is considered an acceptable "entry-level job" -- whereas my contemporaries had internships TO get that much-needed "experience" on your resume for that so-called entry-level job?

I guess the reason I ask is because the pressure is on this next generation. My mother didn't get a college degree, and it served her just fine. However, it was her generation that started the whole college effort, the "counter-culture" if you will. Billy Joel once sang that every kid had a good shot to get as far as their old man got, but when refineries, mills and factories were closing down and setting up shop in developing economies, the writing was on the wall that college educations were the next step. Now I have a masters, and feel like that's not even enough these days! Is the higher education degree becoming saturated to the point where there is no value?

The New York Times seems to think so, asking the other day if an "elite college is worth the cost?" My friend's son got a very substantial scholarship to subsidize his education, at a very good school. This article though suggests that perhaps it does not matter whether the school is high-tier, an Ivy or just a regular ol' four-year establishment...that a degree, a completion of something, suggests that it may not make much of a difference. Or does it at all?

I guess the proof will be when we analyze how this generation fares in another 20 years. After all, my generation is responsible for Microsoft, Twitter, heck even our President is a member of my generation. And we were the ones labeled as "slackers." Go figure. If anything, it proves that we are all incredibly adaptable, even with the whole generational shift that naturally occurs.

Failing anything else, just wanted to remind you that Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard, so he managed to adapt very well.

Just sayin'.