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(More customer reviews)Success Without College explodes many of the myths about college that abound in upscale suburban neighborhoods where parents expect all their children to go to the Ivy League and thrive. It helps you determine if your child is ready for college, or for a different kind of experience as early as age 15. More importantly, by improving the perspectives of parents, this book will change and reduce unrealistic pressures on youngsters that can make the teenage years difficult. In the process, parents can take satisfaction in helping launch their children onto a more productive path.
Despite the fact that U.S. high schools seem to create poorly educated students, a higher percentage of people leave those high schools to attend college than in any other country in the world. College is expensive, and this is a great drain on families and students. Yet, most of those who go off to attend college will not graduate in 4 years. Many will never graduate, and will receive little of value to sustain them as people and economically. Frequent binge drinking seems to be the main experience that people get at college these days.
A great strength of this book is that it is based in part on personal experience. The author's own son went to college for two years and did poorly. He then went out to work, and began learning how he needed to proceed with his life in the process. For many young people, college right after high school is too soon. You have to be both academically and emotionally mature. More people are the former than the latter. The book has a wonderful quiz that you can use to assess the emotional maturity of your youngster. I thought the quiz was good because it picked up on issues that two of my children had (who actually did complete college in 4 years), which I should have paid more attention to at the time. Perhaps each of them would have gotten more out of college if they had worked or done volunteer work for a year or two first.
The book also addresses what to do with the child who is having trouble with high school. You will also find out about a variety of resources for dealing with emotional problems, learning disorders, and career planning. There are counselors who can help and programs that you can pursue. In many cases these cost money. In other cases (like the Army), they just take investigation.
Given that more young people will not graduate from college than will, you would think that there would be more books about succeeding for those who do not go to college than those who do. It's just the opposite. Whether or not you think your children will and should go to college right away, I recommend you read this book. You may get some good ideas that may change your mind, and make your child's life much better!
If you are like me, you have not done enough thinking about how to prepare your child for life, as well as education. This book is a superb resource to do just that.
My main quibble about the book is that it relies on a few counterexamples to explain how well those without college educations can do. I would have liked to have seen a more systematic discussion about how those who go without college can always outperform the clueless liberal arts major. That would have given the book the necessary legitimacy to make parents feel terrific about exploring the noncollege options.
After you have finished this book, I suggest that you discuss what you learned from it with another parent to help pass along the message. If your child is willing to read, you can have a much better discussion about what to do next if both of you read this book first.
After you have had those discussions and taken appropriate actions, I also suggest that you consider where else you may have misconceptions about being a parent. What should your children be doing to prepare to be effective volunteers? What should they be doing to prepare to become lifelong learners after they leave school? What values will serve them the best? How can they learn to be good spouses and parents? You may be able to make improvements in these areas as well, based on your own thinking and research. Good luck!
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Success Without College: Why Your Child May Not Have to Go to College Right Now--and May Not Have to Go At AllIf your child seems indecisive about college, don't read the riot act, read this landmark book instead. College is not the only alternative. A New York Times editor and concerned parent tells you why and helps you to find happy alternatives to starting college before your child is ready.As an educated, committed parent, Linda Lee harbored the usual expectation of a prestigious college degree as the illustrious preface to a top-flight career for her child. Some fifty thousand dollars and several disastrous report cards later, Lee recognized that her seemingly rational expectations were proving far-fetched and that her son was simply not ready for college. Moreover, she was shocked to discover that his experience was not the exception but the rule; only 26 percent of students receive a bachelor's degree within five years.Why, then, are parents led to believe that their children must go to college immediately and that it is the right choice for everyone? If not attending college worked for Bill Gates, Harry S. Truman, Thomas Edison, and William Faulkner, why can't it work for your child and what are your alternatives?Success Without College is a groundbreaking book that reveals the surprising facts of why many bright kids are not suited for college (or at least not right after high school). Lee's accessible, knowledgeable style informs parents why this should be more a source of pride than shame by providing profiles of students and parents from around the country and their creative, positive solutions to the college dilemma. With a college education now costing an average of a hundred thousand dollars, maybe it's time for American parents to reconsider: Do you really need college to succeed?
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