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I deeply appreciate this quote from a UK home educator:
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People sometimes ask how I got the children to do their work. It wasn’t always easy, but the fact that they’d been home educated from the start was helpful. The younger ones looked up to the older ones and wanted to “do home ed”. In general, I tried to remember the home educator’s favourite truism that education is about lighting a fire rather than filling a bucket — and you can’t light a fire if one of you is crying, or cross, or tired. That meant, for example, that I did reading practice with one of my children while snuggled up in bed, taking it in turns to read a line each, because he found it especially hard. That same child used to hunker down under the table when tackling maths problems, so clearly unconventional learning spaces were his thing. (He now works sitting at a desk.)
I also see myself as more of a midwife than an obstetrician. Learning is the children’s job; my task is to facilitate that.
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In my workshop "Homeschooling the Real (Distractible, Impatient, Argumentative, Unenthusiastic, Non-Book-Loving, Inattentive, Poky, Vague) Child," I always emphasize that there's nothing we can do to create a love of learning in our kids--all we can do is provide a space for that love to develop over time. (We also can't create gratitude, love, ambition, or any other of those innate desires. That's up to the child.)
You should be able to read the whole piece with the gift link below, but if not let me know and I'll try again.
I home schooled my children till 16 — all four got into Oxbridge
www.thetimes.com
At first people called her reckless, but Elizabeth Howard overcame her doubts6 hours ago
Good Morning, the gift link doesn’t work for me.
How do we keep the pull of cell phones and video games from drowning our attempts to light fires? The addictive pulls are SO strong!
Oh my - The (ruddy) Times has finally posted a positive article and disenabled comments 🤣
Interested in that workshop!
I’d love e to read it Where is the conference workshop?
I love the title of her workshop!! 😂 I can totally relate to it - I have two who fit a few of those descriptions and it has been a process for me to give them the space they need.
I'd love to read this I don't see the link
Paywall
We have Apple News and I found it there. It may not open, but here’s the link: apple.news/AXAO52SL1TNyYn4cBWPdF0Q
I’d love to read it but it’s behind a paywall.
I'd love to read, but it doesn't seem to work.
Paywall. 👎🏻
I don’t see the link.
This is a thought-provoking, evidence-based take on American attitudes towards higher education.
I never even considered *not* steering my now-adult children towards college. In recent years, I've thought that I might reconsider that assumption, if I had high school students in the 2020s. But as Rose Horowitch points out, there are still good economic reasons to invest in a four-year degree (and that's to say nothing of the intangible benefits).
Excerpted from the Atlantic piece, link to the entire essay below.
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If you were to judge by public-opinion polling, you might reasonably conclude that Americans have broadly given up on the idea of going to college. In 2013, 70 percent of adults surveyed by Pew said that a college education was “very important.” This year, only 35 percent did. Over the same time period, the share of Americans who believe that college is “not worth the cost” rose from 40 to 63 percent, according to NBC.
If you were to judge, instead, by the choices that Americans are actually making, you might draw a different conclusion. Despite the reported skepticism of higher education, enrollment in four-year colleges and universities is growing. These institutions awarded 2 million bachelor’s degrees in 2023, compared with 1.6 million in 2010, and the fraction of 25-year-olds with a bachelor’s degree has steadily increased for the past 15 years. Even as Americans tell pollsters that college isn’t worth it, their behavior suggests that they still recognize the value of a degree for themselves and their children. And they’re correct to do so.
For the overwhelming majority of graduates, the returns on going to college more than offset the cost of tuition. The college wage premium—the difference in earnings between people with only a high-school diploma and people with a four-year college degree—surged in the 1980s and ’90s and has remained close to those historic highs for the past two decades. One recent analysis found that the average person with a bachelor’s degree earns about 70 percent more than a high-school graduate with a similar amount of work experience. Researchers at the Cleveland Fed recently estimated that the college wage premium will stand at 76 percent in 2042. Even though plenty of young people struggle in the job market right after graduation, a college degree tends to unlock more lucrative career paths with greater long-term opportunities for advancement.
And despite the proliferation of headlines about the skyrocketing cost of attending college, most American students are paying less in tuition than they were a decade ago. After factoring in financial aid, the cost of attending a public four-year college has fallen by more than 20 percent since 2015, even before adjusting for inflation. Prices at private universities have modestly increased over the same time period, but are down by 12 percent after adjusting for inflation. Even after accounting for student-debt payments, the average college graduate nets about $8,000 more a year than someone with only a high-school diploma...
So why do people insist, against the evidence, that college isn’t worth the cost? One possibility has to do with the counterintuitive way that college is priced. The sticker price of attending college—the tuition figure that colleges post online—has increased astronomically over the past two decades. But because of financial aid, only the wealthiest families, less than 20 percent of all college-goers, actually pay it. Everyone else’s tuition is essentially subsidized by those rich families. Unfortunately, polls suggest that Americans don’t know that...
Another factor is politics. Donald Trump has waged war against elite universities. His vice president, J. D. Vance, has argued that “professors are the enemy.” The result of such provocations has been to negatively polarize the Republican base against the idea of higher education. Across surveys, Republicans report cratering confidence in the value of a degree. Given the fact that enrollment keeps growing, such statements might be more a form of partisan signaling than literal cost-benefit analysis...
As Preston Cooper, a higher-education policy researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, told me, the best question is not whether college is worth it, but under what circumstances. So far, the popular narrative doesn’t seem to have dented enrollment. How long that cognitive dissonance can endure is anyone’s guess. “Oftentimes, people say that not everybody should go to college, and that these two-year programs, these trade schools, are really good,” Strohl said. “Ask them where they’re sending their kids.”
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The College Backlash Is a Mirage
www.theatlantic.com
Americans are more pessimistic than ever about the value of a degree—but enrollment keeps going up.5 days ago
I looked up my W&M tuition 1984-1988. My parents paid my way - a sacrifice given a single income and dad was a college prof (read, not rolling in money). I vowed to do the same for my kids. My parents did that for two of us. My 3 boys I saved every month from the day they were born. When we got in the mid-teens I could not figure out why I was nowhere close to current costs. I went back and did the math. School was present value 2x more expensive that what my parents paid to put me through. In parent money, I was having to save 6 kids worth of college costs at the rate my parents paid. I don't buy the "Atlantic facts" above because frankly I think they are arbitrary in terms of where info (in time) was cherry picked. I doubt my situation is unique.
I always ask what the agenda of someone discouraging college (or trade school) is. I’ve seen some clear propaganda in the anti-college sector.
I have three adult children and four left to graduate high school. We educate them to be ready for college but we talk about what they want to do upon high school graduation and determine if college is the path they need to take. My oldest (now a college grad) did not really want to go to college but he did not really have another sustainable plan other than “be an author”. So, with a full tuition scholarship, he went to college and got a degree. Having the degree would open doors. We would not have recommended him to do this if it had not been free. I think much of the perception of college being a waste is people spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on degrees that offer no sustainable income opportunities. They walk away with huge debt and a degree in an obscure field that offers very little chance of gainful employment. Beyond that, college as a “right of passage” has led to the acceptance of the party atmosphere where the perceived image is drunk coeds dressed in skimpy dresses and obnoxious frat boys pounding beers and hazing freshman. Attending college is just four years of putting off adulthood and too many do it with loans. Then there is the subpar, ridiculous intro classes like Comp I where a good percentage of the class does not even know how to write an essay and yet they graduated high school with honors so even the good professors are teaching to the lowest common denominator in the room. And most of the time (I have had four students take comp I at four different schools and I took it back in the day) the teacher is really just subpar themself. Regardless of that, I do think that for most careers college is important. But heading off to four years of “financial aid” that involves a good amount of loans needs to be weighed and measured against what the long term implications of carrying that dept into your post education life.
" ... because of financial aid, only the wealthiest families, less than 20 percent of all college-goers, actually pay it." Dumb question, but does "financial aid" include loans?
This: "the best question is not whether college is worth it, but under what circumstances." In discussions I've had with friends (we've all got kids either leaving home already or soon to launch), the issue is that we want to wisely evaluate whether college is a good fit on an individual basis, rather than buying the idea that it is *always* the right choice (the general message we received when we came of age in the early 2000s).
I think folks are absolutely wise to weigh the cost and return on investment of a college degree, and whether it suits their child. I am, however, suspicious of the way the narrative about college is being pushed out there (it doesn’t feel organic but like an organized push). It really feels like opportunity hoarding so that only some kids can be prepared for specific opportunities. Like how is one going to (for example) go to med school if they didn’t first go to undergrad?
Have you read Climbing Parnassus by Simmons?
People who can easily afford to send their kids to college almost always do. I think that says a great deal about the value of college. By which I certainly don’t mean to suggest that people should be taking on enormous amounts of debt for college, but as the article said, when someone says that not everybody should go to college — ask them where they’re sending their kids.
My husband and I come from a working class background. We were both first generation college graduates and neither of our siblings nor their spouses have college degrees. We are both oldest children and the only ones with college degrees and the only ones to move away from our hometown. Fast forward to our children and both of our children have advanced degrees. We saved for them to go to college but both received academic and band scholarships at a state school that covered tuition and all fees and expenses for undergrad. They made the choice to go to a state school on scholarship and use the money we saved for them to pay for grad school. My daughter has a masters degree in genetic counseling and she is a genetic counselor and an assistant professor at a college of medicine in Houston. Her masters degree tuition was covered by scholarship as well and she used the money we saved for her to pay for her apt in grad school. My son majored in International Studies, Public Policy and Arabic for undergrad and lived in Jordan for a year, where he got interested in water policy and water scarcity. He applied to a Water Science, Policy and Govt masters program at Oxford University in the UK and got in. He used the money we had saved for him to pay for that degree (which was surprisingly affordable compared to a degree at an elite college in the US). He was in the UK when Covid happened and got sent home to finish his masters program online for the final 2 months. Because the Covid Pandemic was raging when he finished his masters degree in the spring of 2020, he wasn't sure how to move forward. He applied for a number of things including jobs and law school. He ended up being offered a full scholarship to law school to major in environmental law. He lives and works as an attorney in Arizona, where water scarcity is a big issue. Neither of my kids started working life with any college debt, which I and they are extremely grateful for. None of my nieces and nephews, all in mid to late 20s, attended college for more than a semester. There is a large difference in education levels and earnings amongst the cousins. In my husband's family, that's not a problem. In my family, it is. My family has a lot of insecurity regarding educational attainment and they are outspoken about it. 🙂
"Ask them where they are sending their kids"
My kids are homeschooled, so have a comparatively weak high school diploma in the eyes of employers. We made the decision many years ago to homeschool our advanced learner in lieu of private education (which costs as much as college, but lasts 12 years instead of 4). We put that money saved into his college fund (429 plan). He’ll complete his senior year of highschool with about 60 college credits from dual enrollment at the community college, and is only considering schools which will accept those (or most of those) credits. However, he is convinced (at this point) that he wants the full 4-year college experience. That is his choice, and as a homeschool student I do think it’s the right choice to experience that social environment and build his independence. It is not the economical choice. He plans to double major. He will not be eligible for any financial aid or waved tuition based on parental/family income/credits. We’re part of that 20% subsidizing everyone else’s college experience. The cost of college for him is pretty staggering even with all of our planning. I often wonder if our planning and financial conservatism has backfired for us. Maybe we should have bought a bigger house so we’d still be paying a mortgage. Maybe we shouldn’t have saved for college. Maybe we shouldn’t have focused on building our retirement funds all these years. Maybe we should have chosen to retire early (we may do that for our second child, currently aged 11). As such, my son is not even considering top tier Ivy League schools despite being a National merit scholarship semi-finalist. We simply can’t afford it. We’ve told our kids to focus on middle tier private schools (with scholarships) or state schools (without scholarships) for undergrad, and to focus on those institutions that have research opportunities for freshman. If they feel they really need the name of top tier school on their resume then they can pursue that for grad school on their dime. This provides incentive for scholarships to stretch that college fund. Our goal is for our kids to graduate undergrad with no debt. That seems more important for starting out their adult lives than an Ivy League name. Would that assessment change if they qualified for fee-waved college expenses? Absolutely. I’m not complaining; leveling the playing field is important. I’m just explaining that the assumption that the wealthy can afford Ivy League is not always accurate. And I’m explaining our thought process. But college was never considered to be optional in our household.
Often, graduate earnings are seen as evidence that college creates economically valuable skills, when in fact its value may lie primarily in signaling to employers a person’s intelligence, persistence, conformity, and work habits. A degree may be financially valuable to the individual while being extraordinarily socially inefficient.
I don’t think college is necessarily a bad choice, but I think people are rightly looking at not just alternatives but alternative paths toward education. My oldest son attends Williamson College of the Trades. It is free, and he will graduate with high value skills as a machinist. He will also have clear paths available for turning that degree into a traditional 4 year degree. He graduates in the Spring and pursue a degree in manufacturing engineering, which will require approximately 3 semesters worth of classes. He also had a very productive gap year where he gained valuable work experience and was able to discern a better choice for him than the traditional “go get a degree in math or engineering.” My second son is enlisted in the USCG. He is currently working in engineering on a cutter while waiting for A school to become a flight mechanic, a high value skills outside the military. He also has plans to start college using the GI bill to pursue a degree in Psychology to possibly eventually become a counselor specializing in PTSD. I homeschool with the goal of producing liberally educated students. I also emphasize a college ready transcript even if my child isn’t sure they want to go to college. I want them to have options. I think people rightly question the university model where it is automatically expected that you go out of high school and extensive debt is acquired with no clear path for paying it off. We need to be rethinking the 4 year degree as the gold standard. A lot of jobs requiring a 4 year degree really shouldn’t, and vocational education has been shoe-horned into the liberal arts model, which isn’t efficient and has made the true liberal arts degree a rare commodity. We’ve gentrified a lot of jobs that used to be blue collar or learned in an apprenticeship but now require 4 years of debt even though it is not an efficient way of preparing to do that job. Its a disservice to both people who desire a traditional liberal arts degree and people who would not otherwise pursue it if the alternate path existed. We also ought to be asking why the high school diploma’s value has plummeted. There is no reason a college degree should be a filtering tool for, say, working retail. But it is, and that’s ridiculous. And if that is a measure of its “value,” then that is evidence of a broken system, not proof that college is for everyone.
In my mind the goal isn’t college, but growing up and being able to support yourself while not taking on student loans as much as possible. That has meant a winding road through college for my adult children. So far, the path has looked different for each, and so far, still no loans. Community college, military, and trade school have been developmental steps that led to university, bachelor degrees, internships, scholarships, and steps beyond.
I absolutely agree with this premise that people do differently than they say. Especially here in the South, where Republicans are King, I know many people who diminish the idea of college and that it’s needed. How many times have I heard, “Well, I can’t find a mechanic, and I have to wait days for a plumber! Blue collar jobs will always be needed and no college debt!” And yet, those same people send their kids to college. I send my kids to college too, but I don’t mind telling people that I WANT my kids to go to college—not even just because they’ll make more money. I want them to go because it’s an important transitional four years that has so many benefits for life.
But what is meant by financial aid? My perception is that an overwhelming amount of financial aid is in the form of loans which is only kicking the can down the road. I'd love to know I'm wrong, but personally it doesn't feel that way.
It also doesn't help that as this article points out that only the wealthiest families pay the full sticker price which means the rest of the world has no idea how much tuition actually is without going through the entire process. College tuition and medical bills are similar in the lack of transparency (despite a law saying medical costs are supposed to be readily available.)
In Michigan, sadly, the college going rate HAS dropped: “About 54.6% of Michigan's public high school graduates from the class of 2025 enrolled in college within six months, down from 56.8% the previous year and 64.7% a decade prior.” Source: bridgemi.com/talent-education/michigan-college-enrollment-rate-slips-despite-1b-in-state-scholars...
My issue is that even at state schools, you could leave with $40k + in debt. My daughter was looking to transfer to our state college after getting her associate’s. But, she would still have over $20k in debt with a teacher degree and we all know how well teachers are paid.
It’s definitely not mirage. Have you seen the cost of college? Almost six figures….a YEAR. I don’t want my child saddled with bankruptcy proof debt for the majority of their adult life. Wealth inequality will continue to grow exponentially if we continue to assume college is the default. PS My husband and I paid off 90k in college debt…from degrees we got twenty years ago.
Very Interesting.
