2) GETTING THE MOST OUT OF COLLEGE

    If you have limited finances, as do most people, and there is not a reasonably good local public high school for them to attend, it makes more sense to invest in a good private high school than in college because high school is the most important phase of one’s education, as I discovered by teaching college for sixteen years. Some of the top universities, including Ivy League ones, often shortchange lowerclassmen (freshmen and sophomores) by assigning graduate students as teaching assistants, substituting for professors who are caught up in their own writing, speaking, consulting, etc. Many professors, especially the more ambitious ones, consider teaching lower classmen a bore and a waste of valuable time. (Here, I must confess that I considered myself blessed that I only taught upperclassmen and graduate students.) I had many students in my graduate program who had graduated from top universities tell me that in some courses the only time they had seen the professors they had had was at the opening session of the course. (At Georgetown, however, all professors were required to teach all their classes or be represented by another professor in their absence.) Before signing up for any course, students should determine whether or not the professor is in the habit of teaching the course or turning it over to a TA.
    Often lowerclassmen stand a better chance of being taught by PhD–equipped faculty members in a good (and far less expensive) community college than in a regular university, even in the best ones. This is an option that should be considered, especially since it is usually easier to transfer to a college of one’s choice as an entering junior than to be admitted as a freshman, as long as the student has received good grades in serious, academic courses. A lot of money would be saved in this way. Having headed a graduate program at Georgetown for two years, I was often appalled at how many frivolous courses were listed in undergraduate transcripts from even the best universities. Would you believe Frisbee 101 and Frisbee 102 for six credits in a top university? (I’m not making this up.) And these credits had cost a pretty penny. I strongly advise parents of college or college-bound students to allow their offspring their choice of a major (within reason), but I would insist on approving all the courses they take to avoid wasting money on relatively useless, albeit “fun”, courses. If they want to take a course in, say, film appreciation, I would say, “Fine with me, but you pay for it.” Generally avoid paying for any course that has the word “studies” in it. These are usually subjective, somewhat superficial, and often polemical in content. (A notable exception, however, is Georgetown’s Russian Area Studies Program that I headed for two years and that was introduced long before the recent rash of trendy, politically correct “studies” courses.)

    In any case, parents working with college counselors, should ensure that their offspring are taking courses leading to a degree.  Of course, students should also work with counselors to ensure they get the courses they need. I know of some students who have wasted years by not being organized for and focused on graduation requirements. If there is any chance at all they might be interested in going into, for example, medicine, any science, engineering, or geology, it is of prime importance in the first two years to take all the math and science that are prerequisites for these majors. If, by the junior year, they decide on a purely liberal arts major, they usually can still graduate in four years. -However, without the lower classman prerequisites, anyone going into the non liberal arts majors cited above will need five years or more, with its attendant extra expense, in order to graduate. I also strongly recommend that students try to meet with their professors from time to time to discuss how they are doing. In financially supporting a college education for their offspring, parents are buying a product. They should ensure that they’re getting their money’s worth, which all too often is not the case. If students being supported in college rebel against this kind of parental intrusion, you might suggest that they drop out of school and start flipping hamburgers at some fast–food franchise. Another name for this approach is “tough love.” Graduating from a top “big name” university will certainly help with getting one’s first job or so, but after that, increasingly, job experience is what counts and it matters less and less where one went to college. I find it noteworthy that the present CEO of Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense contractor, Robert J. Stevens, graduated from Slippery Rock (PA) [now] University which we used to joke about (only) because of its comical name.