25 Ways to Make College Pay Off

Advice for Anxious Parents from a Professor Who’s Seen It All

Author: Bill Coplin, Ph.D.
Pub Date: 2007
Your Price: $24.95
ISBN: 081447456X
Format: Hardcover

• Overview
• Preface
• Table of Contents
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Preface

"Let the buyer beware."
—English translation of the Latin legal term caveat emptor

A father of a college sophomore approached me for help starting a support group called No Basement-Dwelling Grads. Having seen other families find their empty nests occupied by children who do "well" in college but are unable to get jobs, he didn't want it to happen to him and his children.

He had good reason to worry. Here are some gruesome facts:

* About 46 percent of college freshmen will not graduate from four-year programs in six years.¹

* About 60 percent of college graduates say they plan to live with their parents after graduation.²

* Only 20 percent of the 450 business and political leaders in a 2004 survey said yes when asked whether schools are preparing students to meet employers' needs.³

Who's responsible for the swarms of overqualified, underemployed, still-living-with-mom-and-dad twentysomethings? Well, there are the professors who love their subjects more than their students and college administrators who are more interested in winning research grants and filling seats than educating undergrads. Many critics (and victims) of this consistent failure have been given a voice over the past decade by state and federal politicians who have issued reports and proposed legislation to hold colleges and universities accountable for high costs and low achievement.

Although colleges and universities could do a much better job of helping undergraduates pursue satisfying careers after college, students don't seem to know how to get the most out of their college educations. Parents paying the freight need to provide guidance to their children on how to make the college years pay off.

I'm not saying undergraduate education does more harm than good for its students. But I know it could do a lot better. And as a parent, you can help your child use his entire college experience, not just the courses, to prepare for a satisfying career. You can maximize your child's opportunity to find and pursue a satisfying career path after college by following the advice provided in this book.

This book suggests a no-nonsense approach toward your child's college experience. That means no nonsense with your child and no nonsense with the college program. You may find it difficult to follow all of the book's recommendations, and you may disagree with specific suggestions; like any self-help book, you can pick and choose from the advice provided here. If nothing else, it will show you how seeing college as a chance to gain work-related experience is the key to preparing your child for a successful career. But I recommend following through on the specific strategies at the end of each chapter. They will make a huge difference in your child's success.

I developed and tested the tips in this book during my forty years of student advising, lots of research, and interviews with some of the nation's most prominent employers. But they are also advice I gave my own children. Now in their late thirties and early forties, they each had a different college experience, but all found worthwhile work and happy lives. I will give you some details on them and their spouses in chapter 3.

If nothing else, I hope this book helps you and your child become better consumers of undergraduate education with respect to career preparation. There are other purposes for a college education: Children need to mature, have a good time, become good citizens, and learn for the sake of learning. But this book's focus is on helping parents help their children prepare for rewarding careers after college—the number-one reason parents pay as much as $200,000 for a four-year undergraduate program.

I decided to write this book for parents rather than students for a very simple reason. In discussing my previous book, 10 Things Employers Want You to Learn in College, with parents, I realized that writing directly to students was not enough. Students rarely read the book; their parents and relatives did. Moreover, I realized that parents approach their children in a variety of counterproductive ways. It's as if they're at the race track spending money and watching from the sidelines. Their primary activities are cheering for high grades or letting loose a torrent of four-letter words when their children appear to be faltering. Parents have to become investors, not gamblers, in their children's college educations. 

The book is divided into six sections:

* PART ONE: Three Goals for Career Success Through College. This section describes the three goals that your child should have to prepare for a viable career path after college. The three goals are to (1) develop skills employers want, (2) build the character employers want, and (3) explore a variety of career paths.

* PART TWO: Building a Good Relationship with Your Child. This section describes how you can establish a working relationship with your child to support his career preparation during the college years. The advice recognizes that you can't make your child do anything, but you can coach him to be successful.

* PART THREE: The High School Years as Career Preparation. This section provides suggestions on what parents should do during the years before college, including the application and college-selection process. If your child is already in college, you can skim this section, but you may gain some insight into his college performance by looking back on his high school years through the lens provided by these chapters.

* PART FOUR: Academics: The 50-50 Principle. This section describes the academic component of a college education. It shows why academics constitute no more than 50 percent of your child's college education with respect to his career preparation. It also provides answers to other academic questions relating to grade point average (GPA), transferring, and graduating early.

* PART FIVE: The Other 50 Percent. This section provides ideas on how your child should use her college years to develop skills, build character, and explore careers by engaging in activities outside of the classroom. I discuss the vital importance of student activities, jobs, internships, and the career-services office as well as the key roles these things can play if your child uses them intelligently.

* PART SIX: Post-College Paths. Graduate school should not be a default option. This section shows how the twenties can be used by your child to hone skills, enhance character, and discover a career while earning enough to live on his own.

Because I have spent most of my career teaching at a university and have been effectively "out of the job market" for some time, I invited two colleagues of mine to contribute the final chapters on job searches and career development.

This book is not about finances, dealing with roommate problems, how to get good grades, or how to get admitted to the best graduate schools. Many other books and websites are available for such purposes, and I encourage you to check them out. This book is about how to help your children maximize their college experiences in order to pursue satisfying careers. The primary audience for this book is parents whose children are planning to attend or already attend a traditional four-year undergraduate program; however, much of it can be applied to those planning to attend two-year programs or vocational postsecondary programs.

Each chapter closes with a section titled "What Parents Can Do." These sections list a few very concrete and specific strategies that you can follow in coaching and encouraging your child. They provide a simple and commonsense approach to helping you help your child be on track when he graduates instead of spending his twenties (and possibly longer) getting the career-savvy education he should have gotten in college. A "Useful Resources" section at the very end of each chapter will also help you gain additional perspective.

Throughout the book, I have drawn examples from students I have worked with over the past forty years. I asked current students and parents, mostly from Syracuse University, to provide sidebars elaborating on the points in the text. Their anecdotes illustrate my point but should not be taken as comprehensive evidence. Helping your child use college as a launchpad for a career after graduation is not a science. Even though I based my advice on the best research available, research is often contradictory and not easily transferred into reasonable strategies for real-world problems. All I can tell you for sure is that I have seen it work for my family and my students. Take what you find sensible and think will work for you and your child.

Notes

1. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Almanac Issue 2006–2007, p. 14.

2. Peg Tyre, Karen Springen, and Judy Scelfo, "Bringing Up Adultolescents," Newsweek, March 25, 2002, p. 34.

3. USA Today, December 28, 2004, column B1.

© 2007 Bill Coplin.
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