4 ms·

This is really great. I've been talking with friends who have high schoolers, and it's clear that the college preparation and application process is incredibly

This is really great. I've been talking with friends who have high schoolers, and it's clear that the college preparation and application process is incredibly stressful, time-consuming, and expensive. And that's for the kids who are a reasonably good fit for college, and who have supportive parents. But so much of the market value of a college degree is in the signaling (just showing you were smart enough to get in) that it doesn't make sense to spend all this time, money, and heartache on this process. It's an arms-race dilemma for students and families, so it's hard to opt out of. But the more employers that move in this direction, the better things will be for lots of kids, and families.

cgearhart 4y ago
On the flip side… I have two high school seniors. We have the resources and support they could need, but they have both opted out of all forms of college at this point. (They wouldn’t even fill out an application when I offered to pay them to apply, and refused to take any HS classes that were not graduation requirements as seniors.) I have tried to make the point that they owe it to their future self to keep their options open, but they just don’t care. Now their friends are being accepted to college and starting to talk about going away for school…and I’m starting to see the first cracks of regret. I wonder if they’ll have more stress or less in the long run given their choices. It definitely feels like this generation is skeptical of college, but very few are truly opting out.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  What do your kids plan to do after HS? If they regret the decision after seeing their friends go off to college, couldn't they apply next year and say they took a gap year to do all the things they missed out on during COVID, or some such thing?
  - cgearhart 4y ago
    They don’t really have plans. (This is part of the problem.) My plan is to ask them to get jobs & take some increased responsibility for their own needs & wants after high school. I’m pretty willing to support them if they have _some_ kind of plan (start a company? Volunteer somewhere? Sure.) You never know, they might apply to college in a year (or later), but they’ll still live with choices like not taking any advanced/honors or elective classes in high school—and just generally not applying themselves while they were there. COVID certainly did them no favors, but at some point that’s not a very good excuse anymore.
    - gnicholas 4y ago
      What caused them to opt out in this way? I would imagine it wasn't driven by developments like the one described in the article, since this is pretty uncommon. If your kids don't end up going to college, wouldn't it actually be good if there were more jobs open to them?
      - cgearhart 4y ago
        I think it was a combination of COVID and well-intentioned bad advice from school. As high school freshmen they went home during COVID lockdown for almost two years of useless home “school”. Teachers assigned work they never graded, and others assigned work they never taught (or the students just didn’t understand). But the bar was so low that all these kids passed their classes anyway. What’s the message that sends? Certainly not that school matters. They also heard a lot from 20-something teachers about how much student loans cost and how important it is to think hard about your major and financing. All good advice, but what my kids heard is that college is an unaffordable waste of time unless you want to be a doctor or engineer—and that’s not what they want. But they also do seem to have some expectation that college won’t really matter for them. Maybe more changes like this one in the article will make that come true, but that seems like a risky bet. And to be clear, I’m not complaining about the OP article. I think it’s a good thing to unwind the credential creep that has happened in hiring.
stainablesteel 4y ago
i completely agree, the stress induced from the process of prepping for college and jumping through other bureaucratic hoops is not worth the cost and the cost is not worth the end result i do pharmaceutical work, and my employer will only hire people with bachelors degrees but i swear i could teach this to a middle schooler. there's no reason we can't allow people to learn from life rather than learn for bureaucratic requirements.
- electriclove 4y ago
  I totally agree but I don’t see how the system will change. I certainly can’t convince my employer, can you?
  - stainablesteel 4y ago
    the change will come from all the people that already realize it, give it ~10-20 years

cgearhart 4y ago

On the flip side… I have two high school seniors. We have the resources and support they could need, but they have both opted out of all forms of college at this point. (They wouldn’t even fill out an application when I offered to pay them to apply, and refused to take any HS classes that were not graduation requirements as seniors.) I have tried to make the point that they owe it to their future self to keep their options open, but they just don’t care. Now their friends are being accepted to college and starting to talk about going away for school…and I’m starting to see the first cracks of regret. I wonder if they’ll have more stress or less in the long run given their choices. It definitely feels like this generation is skeptical of college, but very few are truly opting out.

gnicholas 4y ago
What do your kids plan to do after HS? If they regret the decision after seeing their friends go off to college, couldn't they apply next year and say they took a gap year to do all the things they missed out on during COVID, or some such thing?
- cgearhart 4y ago
  They don’t really have plans. (This is part of the problem.) My plan is to ask them to get jobs & take some increased responsibility for their own needs & wants after high school. I’m pretty willing to support them if they have _some_ kind of plan (start a company? Volunteer somewhere? Sure.) You never know, they might apply to college in a year (or later), but they’ll still live with choices like not taking any advanced/honors or elective classes in high school—and just generally not applying themselves while they were there. COVID certainly did them no favors, but at some point that’s not a very good excuse anymore.
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    What caused them to opt out in this way? I would imagine it wasn't driven by developments like the one described in the article, since this is pretty uncommon. If your kids don't end up going to college, wouldn't it actually be good if there were more jobs open to them?
    - cgearhart 4y ago
      I think it was a combination of COVID and well-intentioned bad advice from school. As high school freshmen they went home during COVID lockdown for almost two years of useless home “school”. Teachers assigned work they never graded, and others assigned work they never taught (or the students just didn’t understand). But the bar was so low that all these kids passed their classes anyway. What’s the message that sends? Certainly not that school matters. They also heard a lot from 20-something teachers about how much student loans cost and how important it is to think hard about your major and financing. All good advice, but what my kids heard is that college is an unaffordable waste of time unless you want to be a doctor or engineer—and that’s not what they want. But they also do seem to have some expectation that college won’t really matter for them. Maybe more changes like this one in the article will make that come true, but that seems like a risky bet. And to be clear, I’m not complaining about the OP article. I think it’s a good thing to unwind the credential creep that has happened in hiring.

stainablesteel 4y ago

i completely agree, the stress induced from the process of prepping for college and jumping through other bureaucratic hoops is not worth the cost and the cost is not worth the end result i do pharmaceutical work, and my employer will only hire people with bachelors degrees but i swear i could teach this to a middle schooler. there's no reason we can't allow people to learn from life rather than learn for bureaucratic requirements.

electriclove 4y ago
I totally agree but I don’t see how the system will change. I certainly can’t convince my employer, can you?
- stainablesteel 4y ago
  the change will come from all the people that already realize it, give it ~10-20 years