Caring less about college

I went to a Potato-League school. It had the advantage of being two miles from my parents’ house, so room and board were free. That’s how I was able to work a part-time job and put myself through school with no loans. Today I’m doing okay. No one has really cared that much that I didn’t go to Harvard or Cal Tech. After a certain point I think my employers have just looked at where I’ve been work-wise and what I’ve done.

But I was a bit surprised to hear someone else–a college professor, no less–say the same thing, and in the Huffington Post:

I’ve made a decision: I am not going to steal my son and daughter’s childhoods so they may wind up at Yale instead of Westchester Community College. I am not going to force them to be who I say they should be by signing them up for every class and making them stick with it. Instead, I am going to sit back and watch them find their own path. I am going to expose them to life and do it as a family. I am going on month-long family vacations in foreign lands and I am not going to worry about how it will look to the football coach or the college counselor. I am going to discuss issues of the day over slow family dinners. And I am going to teach my children that they can be successful doing whatever they want if they follow their dreams and work hard. Going to the best college won’t make that happen for them. Giving them the freedom to flourish in their own way in their own time will.

I can only hope  that my wife and I are doing the right thing by our kids by letting them try different things, even though it’s not always what we would choose. We let them try, and we even let them fail. We’re there to help pick them up again if they really want to keep trying, but in most cases we’re just as open to letting them say, “Nope, that’s not for me.” We’ve even been willing to let them try things on their own without signing them up for classes at this place or that place. Depending on the kid, that’s actually worked quite well. My daughter is largely self-taught in her art. My son has found his own mentors in Pokémon. And we’ve signed our youngest up for tennis lessons–and he’s thrived. Every kid is different. Every path to success is different.

It seems to me Ms. Pearlman is on to something.