Here's another excerpt from the book Getting into College and Paying for It courtesy of the author (I really liked the book -- I gave it 7 stars.) Today, we'll cover "The Painful Truth" which is in Chapter 2 of the book. Here goes:
The Painful Truth
Every student needs an edge in the admissions process whether they apply to Harvard or their local state college. The competition is fierce, and, (I hate to be the one to break it to you), the painful truth is, no one really cares about the education of your student – except you and your family.
It would be ill advised and unrealistic to expect any favors or kindly ‘ole educators to bend over backwards to insure that your student succeeds. You’ll only be disappointed.
The George W. Bush presidential campaign, like so many of its predecessors, attempted to influence your vote with its slogan, “No child left behind.” If the federal government was actually sincere about this and genuinely cared about the education of your kids, all college costs and expenses would be tax deductible. THEY’RE NOT, and while lowering the interest rates on student loans is helpful, it’s still a far cry from what the richest country in the world could and should be doing for its college families.
The Tuition and Fees Deduction for 2002 & 2003 only allowed $3,000 of eligible expenses to be deductible. (See the disturbing Special Report analysis in Chapter 7.) What’s even worse is assessing students as much as 20% annually on all of their assets, even money set aside solely for their education! This is certainly NOT my idea of caring.
Although colleges are more often thought of as institutions of higher learning, every school is first and foremost a business. Like all businesses they sell a product – theirs is an education. Once they’ve sold and delivered their product, they award the purchaser a receipt. This is known as a degree. In order to survive and continue doing business, each year they must find new customers to buy their product. Sadly, what it’s really all about is, “show me the money!”
Perhaps it will change by the year 2015, when the baby boomers will have completed sending all of their children to college. The generations that follow are not expected to have the population growth to sustain the enormous college admissions appetite that schools have today. At that point in time, all schools will be hungry for customers. Maybe by then they’ll actually begin to care, but frankly, I doubt it. In any case, that will be then and this is now – so let’s get back to the 9th grade.
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Lots of truth here about what the college process and college itself is like. In particular, these quotes stand out to me:
- "The painful truth is, no one really cares about the education of your student – except you and your family."
- "Although colleges are more often thought of as institutions of higher learning, every school is first and foremost a business."
These are reasons why you need to take the bull by the horns and start actively taking the steps needed to get yourself/your child into the school he/she wants. (And this plan starts in 9th grade -- as we'll see in future posts.) That's what makes this book so great -- it lists all the steps for you and details what you need to do, when you need to do it, how you need to do it, and so forth. It's an excellent book which I highly recommend.
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