If you are a parent of a senior in high school, you’ve probable realized that graduation is just around the corner. With that comes one of your most important responsibilities, which is to help get your child into a college of their choice. Without a college education, your child will enter the job market with no useful skills; whereas with a college education, your child will enter the job market with no useful skills and parents who are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
Yes, college is very expensive, and it’s getting more so every year. Back in the day when you went to college the costs were in the thousands. Today they will run you well over a hundred thousand dollars, but when it’s time for your youngest child to graduate from high school it could well be ONE GAZILLION DOLLARS (not including snacks).
You may be wondering why college cost are skyrocketing, especially considering that college mainly consist of students trying to stay awake while listening to assistant professors drone away on topics that will never be of any earthly value to anybody who does not intend to become an assistant professor.
Well, for your information, Mr. and Mrs. Skeptical, it takes a lot of money to operate a college these days. Cost include: 1) Those comical hats and robes the faculty members wear at graduation. 2) Salaries for full professors who are paid a lot more than the assistant professors, even though nobody has actually ever seen one. 3) The many expenses that come with operating a truly semi-professional football team. 4) Huge printing costs for the mass mailings to alert the alumni which of them are dead and ask the remaining ones for more money.
You might want to take a quick survey to determine your point total and your chances of sending your child to the college of your chose. If your child has: excellent grades +15 points, below average grades -10 points, stabbed several teachers -30 points. Your child is: president of his or her class +20 points, a member of a school club or varsity sports team +10 points, thinking of getting a nipple or nose ring -15 points. If you: attended college but were asked to leave after the chemistry lab burned to the ground -15 points, have regularly contributed money to the college +20 points, have pictures of the college president naked with a Scottish Highland Sheep +50 points. Add up your points to see if you end up on the plus side of the ledger.
But the main thing to remember is that giving your child the precious gift of a college education you are exposing them to the greatest minds and thinkers in human history – from Plato to Socrates to Chaucer to Abraham Lincoln to Thomas Edison to Bill Gates, none of whom, for your information, graduated from college. The point is, you need to be thinking about which college your child is going to attend, and how you’re are going to pay for it. Remember you probably won’t need both of your kidneys.
