It’s time. You’ve been procrastinating for what seems like forever, but now it’s time to have “the talk” with your child. You tell them that you love them, that you care about them, that you respect them. And now it’s time to prove it. No, I’m not talking about the sex talk. I’m talking about the college talk.

For the sake of their own welfare, you have to tell them the truth. That for the most part, college has become a scam and that only under very specific circumstances would you be willing to help them pay for it. You’ll tell them that the narrative regarding the value of a college education that has stood for hundreds of years is no longer applicable. It is, quite simply, no longer true that you must go to college to have a successful career. It is no longer the case that the vast majority of employers demand that you have a four-year degree in order to be hired. The days are gone where you must have a college education in order to be accepted in society as an “elite” thinker/intellectual. The reason that this narrative is vanishing before our very eyes is clear. The efficacy of a college education has been drastically reduced in recent years.

You will explain to them that we are currently in the midst of a shifting social paradigm. Although there’s a lag time between the reality of this phenomenon and its public acknowledgement, you are smart enough to see that it is here. Spending a large portion your retirement nest egg to have your child indoctrinated into a rabid leftwing ideological cult simply isn’t a good “investment” for either of you. The previously referenced narrative includes the suggestion that it is your duty as a parent to send your child to college, and the associated guilt in not doing so. Don’t fall for this illusion. Most high school kids have little or no idea what they want to do with their lives. Your kid will probably put up a fight in this regard because they want to enjoy the “college experience.” Today, this can be interpreted as them wanting a four year, all expenses paid vacation on your dime. Don’t fall for it. Be the adult. Unless your child has a very specific game plan for their future, spending a couple of hundred thousand dollars for them to “find themselves” is a really dumb idea.

What Your Child Will Experience If You Make This Mistake

As a college professor of 23 years, (18 years full time and five years as an adjunct) it is excruciatingly painful to have to say this. But say it we must if we are ever to resolve this problem. The “powers that be” at the majority of universities in this country are nothing short of snake oil salesmen. In recent years, admissions standards have fallen and in turn, academic rigor is at an all-time low. The acquisition of marketable skills necessary for a successful career has become a distant memory. As these institutions struggle to stay afloat, these charlatans are inexplicably doubling down on their radical political agenda. Student complaints that they are forced to take courses that they neither want nor need go unanswered. Free speech is suppressed, and groupthink has taken over virtually all campuses. Your child will not be taught how to think, they’ll be taught what to think. They will be brainwashed into believing that they are either the oppressed or the oppressor, neither of which will serve them well going forward. They will be purposefully molded into lazy, enabled individuals, ensuring a future of mediocrity. Radical left-wing tenets that they will be inundated with will destroy any competitive spirit and optimism that they might have possessed prior to being exposed to this environment. Studies definitively show that they will have worse mental health coming out of college than when they entered. Diversity of thought has been all but destroyed on college campuses across America. Academic integrity is but a distant memory as cheating is virtually condoned in the name of “equity.” “Research” done at our nation’s universities has become a complete scam. The scientific method, once the benchmark process used for the acquisition of knowledge has, in most disciplines, succumbed to the pressures of political orthodoxy. Research performed through the lens of DEI, for example, can and will only lead to preordained results. Simply put, truth has taken a back seat to political brainwashing in our nation’s schools.  

Alternatives

What if your child seems to know what they want to do with their career and that choice necessitates a college degree? In this case, I would suggest having them attend a community college in your state for two years and then transferring to a public university, also in your state. This way, you can minimize the financial impact as well as somewhat mitigate the intellectual damage that your child would incur at most private liberal arts colleges or universities. Most state universities will accept virtually all graduates from community colleges in their state. In-state tuition is a fraction of out-of-state tuition. To pay a private college/university $75k+ per year to bend your kid’s mind into a pretzel is a ridiculous notion. A bad deal is when you throw your money away on something that is useless. A horrible deal is when you throw your money away by paying someone to abuse your child. Which is exactly what will happen if you make the wrong decision here.

Practically, employers are increasingly not hiring college graduates. Today it can actually hurt your chances of procuring many jobs to claim that you have a degree from a liberal college or university. This is because many employers don’t want to deal with the baggage that comes with most recent college graduates. The mentality of entitlement, lack of work ethic, and absence of marketable skills is too much to bear for someone who simply needs a specific job to be done in a competent manner.

The current college-to-employment pipeline model is broken. The vast majority of 18-year-old kids have no idea what they want to do with their lives and won’t know for some time. We know that their brains are not fully developed until around age 25. Do your child and your bank account a favor. Give them the “baptism by fire” that they so richly deserve, and that most college students spend their “college years” avoiding like the plague. Send them into the workplace to get experience in a couple of disciplines that they think they might enjoy and thrive in before considering sending them to college. Don’t overlook the possibility of trade schools. They are a wonderful way to obtain skills that will serve them well throughout their lives.

It doesn’t make you a bad parent to refrain from spending an enormous amount of money to send your child to one of these indoctrination camps. It makes you a loving and smart one. Yes, it’s time for the talk. Going forward, you’ll both be happy that you did.

Image: AT via Magic Studio