The house on the hill

Let's pretend: you need a place to live. You're not sure exactly where to live or the type of place you want, so you talk to a few realtors. These realtors show you these lovely, huge house, full of rooms you may never use. You never thought you'd ever live like this! It's all so beautiful! Of course, it's way more than you need, but, hey, you only live once!

As you've never gotten a place before, you're not even sure how much you can afford. But every single realtor sits down with you, "crunches the numbers," and assures you can can afford these amazing places. On one hand, it doesn't seem right: they're quoting numbers like $10,000 a month and you only earn $35,000 a year, but they pull out spreadsheets, tell you about grants, low-interest repayment plans, all sorts of ways to get money for this house. They explain to you that living in a place like this will make *you* more valuable, and this amazing house will pay for itself. Now, imagine you're 18 and being told all this. Would you believe it?

Isn't this how college is sold to kids these days? College is not cheap. We all know this. But an 18-year-old looking for a place to spend those next four years might not see all the money:
A breakdown of costs
They see your their place on their own, professors that seem to know everything, parties, big-time sports. It's all very exciting. They don't see the potential debt they may be graduating with:
Lots of stats on college debt
(I won't even talk about how much it might cost if they go to graduate school, but additional education seems to be required more and more these days.)

I would never suggest that kids shouldn't go to college. I am a firm believer in education taking you to that next level. I've got my degrees, and I needed to get them to be where I am today. But I think it needs to be done smarter. Should you be sending your 18-year-old who scraped by in high school and isn't sure of his major in to a private college using loans that he'll have to pay back after he graduates? Maybe that's not the best place for him to try to grow up. There are a lot of kids who might benefit from taking a year or so off and work for a while. See what a dollar buys these days, see how limited their opportunities might be. Colleges should embrace the kids that come back, although I'm not sure if this is the case.

Another part of this mess is the decision of major. I get the argument that college is not a placement service, but there is something to be said about giving someone all the facts before making a decision. There's nothing wrong with warning a kid who's paying $40K a year for college that, given the average salary of a person in her chosen profession, it'll take her roughly 20 years to pay back her college loans. I would also say that a decision about how this 18-year-old will pay back any college debt isn't stomping on someone's dream, but, rather, a practical decision.

There are a lot of ways to get an education. I am saying that the model of sending every 18-year-old who gets in to an expensive college without direction is probably not the best choice. While four years away in college may be a wonderful experience, paying off that debt for so many years to come may offset some of that.