Eric Johnson Let Parents Be Parents Summary

High school graduation marks the start of young adults’ lives, a time where they are expected to decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives. Many young adults are pressured into attending college, whether they have determined their goal or not, but is it necessary? “The Case Against College,” an article written by Linda Lee, a mother who has questioned the former belief that college equals success, claims that “not everyone needs a higher education.” College, though beneficial to many, is not for everyone and should not determine an individual’s life.

In a May 2003 persuasive article published by USA Today titled “College isn’t for Everyone”, the author W.J. Reeves states “about 15 million people in America are enrolled in college.” This is a staggering amount considering the fact that many people are in college for all the wrong reasons. About half of the Americans enrolled in college are there because they feel they owe it to their families. Only a small number of Americans in college actually feel it is necessary for successful lives. In this article, Reeves recollects on his experiences as a college English professor at an institution in New York. He speaks of how he believes that many students truly do not want to be in college. You can tell this by his stories of tardiness,

According to Lupien, McEwan, Gunnar, and Heim (2009), going off to college involves significant adjustments to their daily routines; sleeping and eating habits, time-management skills, and stress levels will be altered in one way or another. First-year students have to adjust to the new school environment, different social settings, and new schedules, all without the help and guidance from their parents, who have been there for them for eighteen years. Over 30% of college freshman report that they feel overwhelmed (Klainberg, Ewing, & Ryan, 2010), where some students even opt to work as they juggle their class and work schedules. Some students work at a job or study harder than others, but they are all trying to get degrees so maybe one day they will have meaningful and significant lives. It is a constant struggle for everyone who is trying desperately to make him or herself into a success. And every college student wants to be involved in society in a positive manner, allowing contribution of their ideals and values to others.

Another point that Ms. Bird makes is that the colleges do not want to interfere with a student’s life (Bird 17). I agree with this analysis. They expect college students to take full responsibility for their lives in addition to acting like adults. Furthermore, by the time students get to college they should be acting with maturity. Like my daughter, some students have not come to terms with the idea of being an independent adult yet. Maturity is a major factor

Universities used to be a privilege for most academic students to attend and it was very affordable, but currently the price per year to attend college has drastically increased. For instance, in the “1970’s the average cost was 10,000 dollars a year and today the average cost is 30,000 dollars a year” (CQ Researcher). This is a triple increase in the price per year to attend college. Allowing this increase on college tuition has impacted the student’s attendance rate. This is a significant financial burden for college students and their family. Some believe that college shouldn’t be free because we are risking the value of college education, while others think it should be free because we are trying to avoid having our upcoming generation

In high school, a parent has to be aware of everything that goes on with their child's life. Then their child grows up and blossoms into an adult that continues their education into college. There in college the parents of these blossoms are no longer as aware of what goes on with their school life. These parents have little control over what goes on academically and socially while their adult children are in college. In the article, “College Kids Have Too Much Privacy” Michele Willins shows us that parents have a right to know what is going on with their children’s college life.

Marty Nemko, in the article, “We Send Too Many Students To College,” acknowledges that colleges have become obscenely expensive and that it is possible to be successful without going to college. Arguing that too many students are sent to college without realizing that it is not imperative, Nemko targets parents in his claims that colleges focus on educating in the cheapest way possible and most importantly, that the advantage of past college graduates in the job market is declining. One of his main reasons is that even though the average college graduate makes more money, hundreds of thousands of students in the bottom half of their high school class do not succeed in higher education. Nemko’s article is the most persuasive article on whether college education still has value as he argues that college is not beneficial to everyone through demonstrations of hyperbole, and figurative language.

Secondly, Hoover interviews various ages of undergraduates and graduates. He uses different age groups, to give the reader perspective on a younger individual’s experience compared to older individual’s experiences. It shows that even the generation that started school in the 1970s viewed a similar importance for making connections in college. The article would be lifeless if the author interviewed all younger undergraduates and graduates, it wouldn’t show the reader what the older generation went through or thought. He builds a solid argument when he involves the older generation. People that Hoover interviewed told different stories, but all implied that there are hidden benefits in college.

Kris, a wife and a mother, worries about the increasing cost of higher education. She and her husband have a two year old daughter whom they are determined to send to college. They want their daughter to succeed in life, but they have to weigh the complications of going to college as well. “I have always thought about college as a “catch 22”...You’re taught from a young age that in order to achieve the “American Dream” you must graduate high school and go to college,” Kris contemplates (Kris 5).Throughout Kris’s ten years of experience with college, she has seen the tuition increase to shocking heights. In fact, she claims that community colleges cost as much as state colleges did when she first started her college hunt. Back then, she

In her article “College Is a Waste of Time and Money”, Caroline Bird attempts to pursued her readers that colleges are overflowing with students who don’t belong there. Her article first appeared in Psychology Today (May 1975). Since this material is outdated, I find it hard to believe that most of the responses by students and parents quoted in the article still hold true. The author has set out to pursue the readers that college is a bad and unnecessary choice for today’s youth. Yet the author holds a bachelors and a masters degree from two different universities. I would think that if she thought college was really a bad choice and a waste of time and money, she would not have gone back to get her masters degree.

Karla Carney-Hall writes a scholarly article to explain current trends in family involvement. Carney-Hall uses a collection of previous research results to acknowledge that “The college admission and financial aid process encourages (and sometimes requires) parent participation” (4). If parental involvement was not going to be beneficial for the students, hopefully colleges would not require them to be involved as much as they do. Another thing that Carney-Hall brings to the reader's attention is that many college students unexpectedly identify their parents as being the most influential people in their lives (5), which could ideally help them to have a support system as they go from high school to college. Elements of Terri LeMoyne and Tom Buchanan’s study contradict the viewpoint that helicopter parenting can be beneficial for the student’s transition into college. LeMoyne and Buchanan bring up the rather recent concept that “...college and university officials... have become so concerned about the supposed negative consequences of ‘hovering’ that they have funneled both money and staff into programs to handle these parents” (400). Taking their knowledge into consideration, it can be concluded that colleges

“Kids who are the first in their families to brave the world of higher education come on campus with little academic know-how and are much more likely than their peers to drop out before graduation” (1). Many people believe that school isn’t for everyone, and whoever goes is privileged for doing so. Countless people in the world today do not attend college, and this is mainly due to an influence of those in their family. Perhaps they are unsupportive of higher education, their parents and family members may view their entry into college as a break in the family system rather than a continuation of their schooling and higher learning. Most of the first-generation students decide to apply to colleges, because they aspire to jobs which require degrees. However, unlike some students whose parents have earned a degree, they often seek out college to bring honor to their families, and to ensure they make a decent amount of money for their future.

Students from all over the United States are told all through their life that they need to attend college if they ever want to be successful, however, this is far from the truth. Often schools are culprits for driving students to attend money driven colleges, in other cases it is family. While schools all too often make the push on students to continue their schooling, parents can cause the same situation, as they may not have a degree and be working a low-paying factory job. Now kids already don’t want to be like their parents when they get older, so seeing them suffer in poverty or barely above the poverty line can cause some dissatisfaction, further seeking a degree to live a life that they never got. What many

Even in college these students get endless “help” from their overbearing parents. When it comes to the college applications, “many of them have so clearly been filled out by someone other than the applicant.” (pg.3, pa.1) This is possible by the parents help for success of their student.

Within the growing number of women in higher education, there is a growing population of students who are also mothers. Mothers attempting to obtain a degree contend with home and family demands that affect their degree completion rates (Carney-Crompton & Tan, 2002; Home, 1998). These postsecondary education students, unlike their traditional peers, are not developing into adult identities that are supported by a traditional college setting (Arnett, Ramos & Jensen, 2001; Arnett, 2000) but instead already have an adult identity as a mother (Wilsey, 2013) with a different set of needs and because of the familial responsibility motherhood brings with it these women are no longer “traditional” students (Cross, 1981; Bean & Metzer, 1985, 1987;