FTR: The Best Colleges?

Since when is a statement such as this something to be proud of:  “UH ranked A+ for B students”?  Or to drive the nail down even further:  “UH is where non-superstars have a decent shot at being accepted and thriving”?

I don’t take offense to the last part–everyone, no matter where you are, should be accepted and thrive.  However, to basically say that UH is a place for non-superstars is quite offensive.  It is a statement that implies, among other things, that only non-superstars go to UH.  So I guess I’m a non-superstar.  And so are all of the people I know who went to UH.  We’re all non-superstars then.

So what exactly is a superstar anyway?  Someone who goes to an Ivy League school? Someone who graduates high school with a 4.0+ GPA, perfect SAT scores, does community service, is an accomplished musician, can speak 3 languages, and a star athlete?  Someone who will then attend this Ivy League school that costs $50k+ a year in order to get a piece of paper proving your knowledge in some useless subject that you wrote some convoluted thesis on in order to impress people with all that you know just so that you can, upon graduation, join the millions of unemployed, except you will be paying back the equivalent of a mortgage payment in student loans but instead of owning a house, you have a piece paper.

So that’s a superstar?  Someone without the smarts to realize that in this day and age, college is what you make of it, and you don’t need to go to an Ivy League college, or any expensive, private, &/or out-of-state college for that matter, in order to succeed in life? In fact, some people (think Steve Jobs) don’t even need to go to college in order to succeed in life.

College is what you make of it, no matter where you go.  But before you go to college, be smart, and calculate the costs of it.  It doesn’t make sense to go to an expensive college and incur $100k+ of debt just so you can become a teacher.  Incurring that kind of debt only pays off if you’re going into a high-paying field, such as becoming a  medical doctor.

In sum, go check out my earlier post regarding the “C” student.  It’s not good to be the “A” student.  So perhaps a statement such as UH being ranked an A+ school for the B student is actually a compliment.  Our country doesn’t need anymore A students.