As my elementary school aged children get older I've been thinking a lot about sending them to college. Specifically I'm thinking about how I'm going to afford it. There was a great OP/ED piece in Forbes recently by John Tamny that, although it didn't assuage my anxiety about paying for college, at least it helped reinforce my original intentions in the first place. The crux of it is this:
"Parents and kids once again aren’t buying education despite their protests to the contrary. Going to college is a status thing, not a learning thing. Kids go to college for the experience, not for what’s taught."
Most of us aren't entrepreneurs. Most of us aren't Walt Disney or Mark Zuckerberg. Most people get a job working for someone else. And the best place to get into that "club" of people who have high-paying jobs is a four year college. It's where you meet the right friends, potential spouses and networking contacts. And it's the first thing a hiring manager is going to notice is missing.
I just wish it cost what it did in the early 1990s.
Online Education Will Be the Next 'Bubble' To Pop, Not Traditional University Learning [Forbes.com]