College, the Darker Side

Something else Matt and I were talking about this weekend which subsequently showed up in the NY Times (are they following us?!) is the idea of college--how when we were growing up and in high school, it was promoted with a kind of elitism that suggested that kids who went to college were just better, smarter, more responsible kids than the "townies" who hung around and got steady jobs. When really, as we look around at our peers who did or didn't attend, the only difference, for the most part, is that we're in more debt, and perhaps having a slightly more difficult time adjusting to the work world than they. College itself seems to me like it promotes a kind of social ADD--don't like a class? Drop it! Don't like your major? Change it! Didn't budget your money well? Borrow more! And this is all done under the guise of "getting a good education," "investing in the future," and with the blessing of those in charge (who, obviously, stand to benefit from convincing kids to a) stay in school and b) borrow money while they're there. All the better if they're around longer than four years!). However, it's especially poor preparation for a real job: in which you can't switch to another "section" if you don't like your boss, and nobody cares if you're bored or not learning anything.

We also noted that college artificially extends adolescence into the years of early adulthood which were traditionally associated with working a job, getting married, buying a home, and having children. And for some people, like us, it seemed to initiate a phase of adolescence that, being raised by hardworking, self-employed, and somewhat stricter-than-many parents, we hadn't had in the first place. "College kids" are treated by society as just that, with a kind of indulgent forgiveness not typically shown to 18-year-olds who are instead entering the full-time job market--a position that is much more difficult, and quite possibly more noble, than that of the coeds who spend their weeks partying and drinking. (Not that everybody spends college doing this; I worked an average of thirty hours a week while carrying a double major and came out with debt in the mid five figures to show for it. So college wasn't really destructive to me in a social sense, but financially, it could have been better.)

The article opens by talking about a study which showed that males in college are more likely to have committed a property crime than their peers who are not in college. I'm not surprised, and I would bet that a similar trend exists for substance crimes and especially sexual assault. Having staffed the rape crisis line in a college town that is constantly plagued by one high-profile campus rape or another, I can say that there's something about the college atmosphere that promotes that kind of predation.

The most relevant portions of the article are below:

"During adolescence, the prospect of attending college was positive. The researchers found that college-bound youth were less likely to be involved in criminal activity and substance use during adolescence than kids who weren’t headed for college.

But college attendance appears to trigger some surprising changes. When male students enrolled in four-year universities, levels of drinking, property theft and unstructured socializing with friends increased and surpassed rates for their less-educated male peers.

The reason appears to be that kids who don’t go to college simply have to grow up more quickly. College enrollment allows for a lifestyle that essentially extends the adolescent period, said Patrick M. Seffrin, the study’s primary investigator and a graduate student and research assistant in the department of sociology and the Center for Family and Demographic Research at Bowling Green State University.

College delays entry into adult roles like marriage, parenting and full-time work. Instead, college students have lots of unstructured social time. Other studies have linked unstructured socializing or “hanging out” with higher levels of delinquency and risk taking."

The full article is here.

So what's the answer? Only that college itself isn't going to miraculously land you a good job, or make you a good person; that if you're not careful, it can do the opposite. That perhaps it makes more sense to look back toward more traditional vocational/apprenticeship training, which was clearly focused toward an end (a productive, successful job), as opposed to glorying in the increasingly self-indulgent means. And an education which focused on efficiently obtaining useful skills, rather than racking up a predetermined number of credit hours (and an undetermined amount of debt) might better serve society at large and our college students.