Value of College

  study abroad pic by flickr user thompsonrivers Every year, the Institute of International Education releases data it compiles about U.S. students studying abroad and international students studying in the United States. The new dataset came out earlier this week. As always, these numbers are interesting.   You can read various versions of the report here, but we’ve compiled a few of our favorite statistics below.

Do you hover low to the ground, micromanaging your collegebound kids from a helicopter pilot seat directly overhead?Or, in contrast to so-called helicopter parents, do you assume your not-quite-yet-launched kids need so little oversight you become what parenting educator Michael Popkin calls a satellite parent? (Hint: Your kids complain you're so far in outer space not even the longest-distance phone plan reaches you.)

   image on cc license from flickr user "life is good (pete)" Martin Luther King, Jr once stated, "the function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education." Certainly, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service 2014, all individuals and students who have a day off of normal activity could enhance their character with service to their fellow man.

One of the great fears parents have about college education is that after all the time and expense, their son or daughter will have skills that are unmarketable, or he or she will be underemployed after graduation. I'm accustomed to people expecting me to provide them with the response that "employers want well-rounded individuals who love to learn for the sake of learning." I don't buy that response, though, because it creates a vision of the intellectual obesity portrayed weekly on TV shows like "Frasier" by the main character and his brother Niles.