« "The Best" »

If you walked onto the sales floor of a car dealership and saw an array of top-of-the-line vehicles of various kinds – say, a Mercedes sedan with leather interior, a Ford minivan with umpteen seats, a Chevy Blazer with those big wheels, or a Dodge Ram pickup – which would you describe as the best?

"The best" is a relative concept in higher education just as it is in cars. What good is the Mercedes if you have to cart your daughter’s soccer team across town twice a week or if the road to your cabin isn’t paved or if you make your livelihood building garages?

What’s best is what meets the customer’s needs. The same is true in choosing a college or university except that there are more factors to consider and it’s harder to evaluate those factors than it is to kick a few tires.

Factors like class size, extracurricular opportunities, and classes taught by professors can be determined before enrolling. But other factors, like developing leadership capabilities or writing effectively can only be evaluated after the college experience.

At this point you may be thinking, "what my child needs is simply a good, serviceable education, where s/he can acquire practical job skills. Why pay for a bunch of frills?" Perhaps, you’re thinking of the educational equivalent of a rust-free two-year-old Saturn, the kind of car Consumer Reports might call a "solid value." 

When you purchase a car, you have a pretty good idea whether you’ll be transporting a soccer team or building supplies. You know whether you’ll be driving on the highway, in the city, or on a rutted country road. And when your driving needs change, you trade your car in for a model that fits your new situation.

A college education, on the other hand, should help your child navigate all kinds of terrain. It ought to provide the foundation for his or her entire career. Think about it: if your son or daughter graduates from college in 2004, he or she will work until at least the middle of the 21st century.

Since the 1940s we’ve witnessed the invention of the atomic bomb and nuclear weaponry, the rise and fall of Communism, the explosion of television, man’s walk on the moon, the conquest of some deadly diseases and the frightening resurgence of others.

What kind of challenges will your child face in the next fifty years? Is there a college education durable and flexible enough to navigate the changes your child will face? If you opt for any of today’s high-demand vocational skills, such as computer programming, your son or daughter may be able to get a pretty good first job. Maybe even a good second job.

But what then? What happens when "the road" suddenly changes into something else entirely?

There is a way to equip your child for the future – whatever it may hold. If you carefully scrutinize your college options, you can give your child an education that will teach him or her to:

• carefully consider and reconsider the destination (or professional goal)
   
• analyze the social, ethical and technological terrain
   
• take in a lot of information from many different sources, without "crashing"
   
• pursue a new route or choose a new destination, if obstacles or unconsidered opportunities arise
   
• discover a sense of purpose, a reason for choosing a particular route

It’s a lot harder to trade in an outmoded college education a few years down the road than that Saturn.

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