April is career and/or college month for many, many young people and their families across the length and breadth of this coast, as a new batch of graduates hits the job market. Because I was just asked to submit a “personal statement” for my 40th class reunion report-suggesting respondents summarize reflections and achievements and any “personal quirks” we might want to share-perhaps this is a time when young and old can look both forward and backward to exchange some generational opinion, if not knowledge.
Leaving aside the personal quirk suggestion (isn’t Facebook for this?), those who graduated from high school or college in the 1970s, confronted seemingly dim prospects for finding a niche in American life-a foreign war had revealed deep divisions in the country; American leadership in the world was questioned abroad; an energy crisis triggered by our economic dependence on foreign oil paralyzed the body politic and a long recession and “stagflation” hobbled growth, followed by another deep recession early the following decade. The more things change….
But as time would tell, graduates back then actually faced a period of almost unparalleled American ascendancy. We licked our wounds from the country’s first lost war, energy prices mysteriously plummeted, and the American economy, especially in the 1990s generally expanded at a pace perhaps unmatched at any other time in our history.
During the last two decades, we have experienced a sole superpower boom, an Internet and technology boom (and mini-bust), and a real estate boom and bust (remember the Resolution Trust Company to unwind the deregulation of the savings and loan industry?), all of which were felt like distant earthquakes in Maine.
But more recently, we are in the midst of two unpopular foreign wars, we are balanced precariously on the edge of another energy crisis and have experienced a financial bust that has affected Maine people much more deeply and directly.
Somehow, however, today feels different than earlier decades and I don’t think it’s just my age showing.
So what do parents advise their sons and daughters-those who are listening -to do? Go into debt to afford the unconscionable spiral in college tuition costs, since no one except banker’s sons and daughters can afford today’s education. I actually had an opportunity to ask this question to a college president last fall at a parent’s weekend while our student slunk lower in his seat. I told the college president that we had put five boys through college-with a great deal of generous scholarship support. But in the eight years between the first and last of these five going off to college, tuition, room and board for a private college education in New England had increased from $33,000 to $51,000 annually heftily outpacing the generosity of scholarship support as their parents went more deeply in debt. This particular president had the courage to say candidly, “the private college business model is broken.” Like so many other parts of our lives.
In the next two weeks, thousands of Maine high school students will be learning what their college prospects look like-as thousands of other Maine college graduates face the bleakest job market of the last 50 years. So here are a few thoughts based on the experience of five local Maine boys who attended four different private colleges, one state university and one professional graduate school.
First, there is almost no such thing as an inferior college. No matter what the choices a high school student faces, the depth and breadth of knowledge available in the American system of higher education-and I include technical and community colleges in this blanket assessment-is unlike anywhere else in the world. What matters most is the energy and ambition of the student herself, the latter of which can still be influenced by engaged and thoughtful parents. It’s not where you go, but that you go.
Second, once you recognize that there is almost no such thing as a bad college education (just unmotivated students where campus culture may trump learning), you are in a much better position to help students make rational decisions about how deeply into debt to go in choosing a college.
There should be more bargains hunting among those paying for college. This may help bring down some of the spiraling costs of look-alike college tuitions based on the Johnny Walker Red Label model-the higher the cost the more some people want to buy it. Canadian colleges, especially just across the border in the Maritimes, look particularly attractive.
Finally, for those college graduates facing the bleak job market, be prepared for a difficult slog. Perhaps the single remaining rationale for a private college education is the quality of its network of graduates and the strength of its career placement office. These are the last vestiges of tribal identity in our culture and they can be useful. Other than that, be prepared to start anywhere and work your way ahead (not necessarily up). Unpaid internships are not all bad. The serendipity of whom you meet by chance along the way is the key to successfully navigating this critical transition.
Personal testimony: I desperately wanted to work as a forester in the north Maine woods during the 1974-75 housing recession, but took a temporary job collecting ecological information on 12 Maine islands. And the rest, as they say, is … chance, luck and hard work.
Philip Conkling is the president of the Island Institute.