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We push our kids that are just out of high school into four year colleges. It has been my experience that a 17 or 18 year old has absolutely no idea what they want to do as a course of study, much less a career. I have advised graduates to go to the local junior college tho see if they can map out a coherent path of study. The benefit of the local junior college is the student gets to stay at home and not run up thousands of dollars in debt from the four year schools.

There is always a huge attrition rate among freshmen and it makes more sense to get one’s academic identity established close to home than far away. Likewise, if one must go to a four year institution, then go to a state university because of in-state tuition benefits.

College or university work is very expensive and I believe it is important for a student to understand what he or she is signing up to do, its pros and cons, and the cost of that decision.

Rather than automatically send your kids off to college, maybe you need to have a long discussion about what they want to do for a living and what their goals in life are. There are alternatives to college that provide training in many different disciplines that can lead to rewarding jobs.

I'm retired and I can tell you that what I learned in college was great for my general knowledge base, but it did not factor in the job I got. The job that T pursued for 30 years was technical writing for aviation systems. In effect, I had to translate the engineer's jargon into instructions for maintenance technicians to follow. That is not an easy task.

[If you think this is a no brainer, then sit down and write a step by step procedure to turn on, sign in, and open various programs on your computer for someone who is completely ignorant of computers and their associated jargon. Bonus points: write up the closing of programs and step by step shutdown procedures for your computer. Then, have someone follow those directions to see how well you did.]