One thing that is left out of this discussion is protective parenting. When you're sheltered and protected until you're an adult, you are, in effect, prepped

One thing that is left out of this discussion is protective parenting. When you're sheltered and protected until you're an adult, you are, in effect, prepped and ready for college. You're ready to be told what to do, ready to follow the course requirements, and do what the other students do. A lot of the commenters on here keep saying how students would be better off trying their hands at startups or reading/self-educating on the side--basically anything but taking a huge debt load on for a poor investment. You're asking people to think for themselves and find their own road. When you've been sheltered and protected your whole life, you're not ready to find your own road! You're ready to follow the rules. Remember, Gen Y was a generation that was allowed A LOT less freedom than previous generations. Kids who got to fool around on bikes, with tools, out in the woods or around the neighborhood on their own, are anomalies. Personal Anecdote: I grew up mountain biking by myself out the hills around my town a lot from the time I was 12. I had a crew of friends who's parents also let them mountain bike and camp by themselves. But most parents didn't. Most kids never got any sense of independence or the chance to pull off their own little projects. So how is someone supposed to go from basically being babysat by videogames/TV their whole childhood to winging startups or figuring out their own road through life? Most don't have the basic life skills in place to allow them to do so. So...they go to college. If they were lucky, they got a skill out of it that then allowed them to get a job. But if they didn't, then they go to grad school and bury themselves in even more debt. Parenting Gurus are waking up to the problem of oversheltering and publishing books like Free Range Kids and 50 dangerous things you should let your kid do.