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

by Heather Huff

Created on: July 19, 2009   Last Updated: July 25, 2009

The wording of this question is misleading. However your feelings about the word pressure, insisting a child attend college would hardly be considered a negative concept. Compel, drive, and insist are all synonyms of the word pressure. If I ask instead, Are parents justified in insisting their teenage children to attend college, does it sound the same? Then there is the teenage children part. Does anyone expect the average teenager to go to college before graduating high school? I think not. When you graduate from high school, that is the appropriate time to attend college. However, some students entering college happen to be teenagers. For example, I was seventeen when I graduated high school and entered college, in which case I guess I was still considered a teenager. Now that I've addressed semantics, lets address reality.

Some people may argue, not everyone is cut out to go to college. That is complete bologna. No one ever said you have to be a top of the list high school graduate, or have to go to an Ivy League school to get a decent education. There are a myriad of colleges out there that accept, and even seek out, students who didn't make the grade in high school. In Colleges That Change Lives, by Loren Pope, he highlights 40 colleges that do just that. He writes, They change lives of A students, B students, C students, people with learning difficulties, late bloomers, the handicapped or disabled, or almost anyone with the desire to learn and grow. In short, they make winners because they exert a special magic, intelligent caring, and tough love (p.14). Pope writes about a business professor from St. Andrew's in Lauringburg, NC, who proudly states that We take kids who haven't done well in high school, but we turn out people who compete with the Ivies. I'd put them up against the Ivies (p.148).

Next, let's talk about the cost of college. Should one push a child to get into an Ivy League college with the costs to match if the pocketbook doesn't afford? Hardly. Parents and children need to be realistic about tuition costs and how it will affect them down the road. It makes no sense to get a degree, then not be able to make loan payments and support a life simultaneously. Students can get a decent education at a smaller, less expensive school and sometimes it can be a more rewarding experience to boot. A student who attended a University wrote, I was in classes of 2,000, sitting in the balcony; I could have gotten my degree without ever

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