The old college try

We've been getting a lot of windshield time over the last few weeks, roaming the Midwest on college visits for the Benster. He has narrowed things down to three choices, all of which are small, liberal arts schools, of the sort that I attended. One of the schools in the running is the one I attended, Beloit College.

The college search has changed a lot since I was making college visits in 1980. I don't really remember a lot about my visit to Beloit College, but I do remember the visit seemed a bit perfunctory. I got down to the school in time to attend a class, have lunch, then meet with an admissions counselor. After that, we turned around and went home. What was more memorable was the date I visited, November 4, 1980. It was election day. The fear was palpable on the small campus -- while no one loved Jimmy Carter, the thought that the citizenry might be about to give the keys to evil Ronald Reagan was just about unthinkable.

What's unthinkable now about college is the cost, and it's evident that a lot of colleges sense that. The competition for slots in the very top institutions is insane -- Stanford rejects 95% of its potential applicants, many for reasons that are incomprehensible to the applicants. Meanwhile, smaller schools are scrapping to fill their available slots, often competing for the same kids. We met a family this weekend at Beloit who had also been at the other schools we had visited (Cornell College and Knox College), and was headed for one more visit next week, to Earlham College. All of these schools have similar reputations in the academic world; how you differentiate among them tends to be a crapshoot.

The costs associated with colleges these days are distorted for many reasons. I'll get to that next.