What’s going down for the college-bound? A lot if you’re applying to schools this academic year. The 2014-15 Common Application will be available on August 1, and you can create your account at that time. But you don’t need to wait until then to start working on your application essay since we already know the prompts!
How much is a college education worth? Many authorities project that someone who has earned a bachelor’s degree will earn an extra million or so dollars on average over a lifetime of work. Others see less potential economic gain… much, much, much less:
After accounting for the cost of tuition, four years of lost earning potential, and the minimal increase in salary an undergraduate degree provides, 30-year-old local man Patrick Moorhouse has, at this point in his life, earned $11 more than he would have had he not attended college at all…
And if this whole hyper-competitive college admissions process is bumming you out, take solace in the fact that at least one pundit believes the nation’s top colleges are turning our kids into zombies:
So extreme are the admission standards now that kids who manage to get into elite colleges have, by definition, never experienced anything but success. The prospect of not being successful terrifies them, disorients them. The cost of falling short, even temporarily, becomes not merely practical, but existential. The result is a violent aversion to risk.
Mike Bergin