Are parents justified in pressuring their teenage children to get a college education?

by Carlos Hurworth

Created on: July 14, 2009   Last Updated: July 25, 2009

There are many arguments in favour of pressuring children into getting a college education. There are statistics that show that a college education can lead to a higher average annual income. There are arguments for the social and even political interaction that attending college can provide. It simply cannot be ignored however, that there are many successful people who walked their journey without following a path through tertiary education.

Michael Dell, founder of Dell Inc, one of the world's biggest computer hardware manufacturing companies, is reputed to have dropped out of college at the age of 19. John D. Rockefeller - arguably the richest man in history - famously dropped out of high school, before even having the opportunity to attend college. And Henry Ford - responsible for bringing the first commercially produced car to the world, and establishing one of the biggest automotive companies of our time, the Ford Motor Co. - didn't even graduate from high school either.

Social stigma has a lot of repsonsibility in adding to this pressure that parents often put on their children. What's more, children forced into this kind of education not only study it at a compromised level, but they waste precious time and precious money that could surely be better utilised elsewhere in their upbringing.

A child seeking fulfillment outside of the realms of their parents beliefs will also feel like they are rebelling against what they have been taught - whether they agree with it or not. The implications of this can become far greater than the implications of, for example, not attending college.

Needless to say, college can be a path to a career of a higher standard. It can also empower our children with an unmatchable knowledge and allow them to challenge themselves to a higher degree, and help them to grow and learn in positive and unique ways. But it simply isn't the only way to achieve this.

Furthermore, college is an expensive way to embark on a journey of discovery in order to find out just where you fit in in the social structure of our society. It is an expensive way to find out where your interests and passions lie (which is often a reason for parental pressure) and what career will make you happy.

And who says that happiness ultimately comes from a higher education? The clearest arguement here is for the fact that parents shouldn't be putting unecessary or biased pressure on their children for any reason. Parents must understand that guidance is the key, not insistence.

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