SmarttChick

I've spent the last 15+ years in academia, from work as an adjunct, to administration and full-time faculty positions, I have seen it all - the good, bad, and ugly!

There is a lot of what I have termed "leftover reality" in play within American families as it pertains to higher education. Many families believe that, as it was in the mill/factory where Pap and GrandPap worked, the kids with a college education get the high-paying, management jobs while everyone else is vulnerable. This belief, in the face of evidence to the contrary, spurs people to borrow obscene sums of money to put little Johnny and/or Little  Janie through college.

The problem here is that colleges have long ago sold out to the highest bidder (anyone with tuition) and while there are some barriers to entry based on competence, these are only as good as the supply of competitive applications. In other words, if you have money (or are willing to mortgage yourself into 3 lifetimes of debt), you can get into most colleges or universities.

The result? There are a lot of "average Joe's" and "average Jane's" graduating each Spring with all the pomp and circumstance, but with much less "upstairs" than one might expect from a college graduate, and the employers know this so guess what? That piece of paper isn't what it was 20 years ago, and you've now earned the right to stand in line with the rest of the college grads, hoping to get a call back or interview.

At the same time, tuition and fees (i.e. the cost of college) continue to outpace the cost of living.This means that students and their parents need to be smart about college. The posts on this hub are dedicated to helping them ask the right questions and hopefully demystify some of the smoke and mirrors that academia likes to employ to confuse you while collecting obscene sums of money from you for a "product" that may enable you to fold clothes at the retail store in the local mall, at wages that will not allow you to pay back your loans.

The focus of these posts will be "what happens on the inside of higher education" and is dedicated to everyone interested in going to college (or sending their kids to college). If you come away from these posts emboldened to ask the hard questions, and less likely to be moved by the baloney perpetrated by the admissions offices in colleges across this nation, then I have succeeded.

Good luck - it's a jungle out there...