Apodaca: College choice shouldn’t be a name game

The end of the school term is fast approaching and by now the vast majority of Newport-Mesa’s high school seniors have solidified their post-graduation plans. Students and parents who have nearly lost their minds during the long and often absurd college admissions drama can finally relax.

Or can they?

Certainly those parents by all rights deserve a breather from the pressure-filled lives they’ve endured over the past several years as they’ve prepared their sons and daughters for this very moment. But now they face a host of other questions as their children enter a new phase, and another set of worries about whether the course each kid has chosen is the “right” one — whatever that means.

So perhaps now is also a good time to take stock of some key trends and topics relating to higher education that are generating a great deal of discussion and controversy, and which could alter our expectations about our children’s continuing education. Whether they are entering a four-year, two-year, or technical college, or have chosen to pursue some other path, it is clear that today’s high school students are graduating into a world that’s evolving quickly and in sometimes unexpected ways.

Following is a roundup of what some of those who closely follow trends in higher education are saying. These “experts” might not prove to be spot on in their judgments, but their arguments are interesting and certainly worth noting, particularly those that challenge conventional wisdom. After all, today’s contrarian might be the one that pushes mainstream thinking into a new era.

One line of thought that is gathering steam is that prestige isn’t what it used to be.

Many more people have been speaking up against the toxic inclination in college admissions of seeing the value of higher education only in terms of the prestige factor associated with certain elite schools. Now that movement might have a bible in “Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania,” by Frank Bruni, a New York Times columnist.

Bruni writes that we’ve become so infatuated with a few hard-to-get-into colleges that we often miss out on terrific learning opportunities that are widely available all over the country. The image of so-called elite institutions as somehow better than others is driven not so much by reality but by our collective perception and the trend of students applying to many more schools than in past generations.

“One of the most damaging trends in higher education is that somewhere along the way, a school’s selectiveness — measured in large part by its acceptance rate — became synonymous with its worth,” Bruni writes.

Amid the frenzy over these low acceptance rates, the good news gets buried. According to Bruni, there are many colleges with far more open admissions that have academic standards on a par with any of the brand-name prestige schools, and many of which offer specialized programs, unique experiences, and opportunities rich with potential for growth and achievement. It’s just a question of finding them.

I say “hallelujah” to Bruni’s honest appraisal of “a game that’s spun wildly out of control,” and hope his book marks the point at which a sea change in attitudes about college admissions is officially underway.

Another important discussion that’s gaining momentum is the reexamination of the cost vs. value paradigm.

It’s a topic that hits home with many of us. I recently received an email from my son’s university informing me that our out-of-state tuition will rise next year, and again the following year. Sound familiar?

Studies have long shown that a college degree significantly improves earnings potential over the course of a lifetime. But rising college costs and astronomical levels of student debt have veered us into crisis mode over how we’ll continue to pay for the increasing numbers of young people who seek college degrees because they think they’ll lead to better paying jobs.

It only takes so many stories of recent college graduates working as parking valets while saddled with student loan debt that could take a good part of a lifetime to pay off to understand that something must be done to make college more affordable.

Increasingly many observers see the answer to the cost-value riddle lying in online education.

Such predictions aren’t new, and they’ve been tarnished a bit by some early stumbles and research showing that few who sign up for online courses actually complete them. There are also problematic questions remaining over many issues, including how credit should be given and whether employers will accord as much significance to online studies as they do to traditional education.

But many proponents believe that we are well on our way to answering those questions, and envision a future higher-education model utterly transformed by online learning. In “The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere,” for instance, education writer Kevin Carey lays out a compelling case that we are heading into a world in which “educational resources that have been scarce and expensive for centuries will be abundant and free.”

I’ll continue this discussion about the hot topics of higher-education in an upcoming column. Until then, congratulations to the incoming freshman class and their parents. You made it. Now get ready for the next round of crazy.

PATRICE APODACA is a former Newport-Mesa public school parent and former Los Angeles Times staff writer. She lives in Newport Beach.