Lately, there’s been a lot of hand-wringing about whether college is worth it. As a college counselor for the last 15 years, I’ve seen the national mood sour on higher education. According to a recent Gallup Poll, only 36% of Americans have confidence in a college education, down from 57% in 2015. Many now weigh the value of college in purely financial terms, comparing the cost to how much in added income a student can expect after a four-year degree.

But this kind of number crunching ignores the countless intangibles of a college education and greatly undervalues a rite of passage that is today a needed gift for teens moving toward adulthood. Four years to learn and mature; to fall down and pick yourself back up again; all while away from home, but not yet entirely on your own. As former Barnard College president Judith Shapiro said, “You want the inside of your head to be an interesting place to spend the rest of your life.” College gives you that. To view it as simply a factory that turns students into productive workers is deeply misguided.

The increasing financial burden of college is, of course, a serious issue. But it misses the real problem and reason why many end up in so much debt: a broken nationwide college-advising system that pushes kids toward a handful of expensive, ungenerous, hard-to-get-into schools — or simply drops them into the local community college — without providing adequate guidance (or sometimes any guidance at all) on the intricacies of financial aid.

If this trend continues, there’s a risk it will seriously hurt the adults of tomorrow.

College is an opportunity for growth

College is worthwhile not just because it helps train students for the workplace, but also because it gives them an opportunity to mature and find out who they are. Today’s students are in desperate need of more time to mature due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  There’s no question that school time lost during lockdowns hurt them both socially and academically. Most kids are really about 18 months behind when it comes to maturity. Pushing a high school senior to know their future RIGHT NOW is about the same as asking that of a 16-year-old.

These kids need and deserve time to grow before they have to go out into the big bad world. They need the kind of time that only the college experience can give them. But their families also need help understanding how to get their kids there, and how to afford it.

Our broken college-advising system

When it comes to college guidance, I’ve dedicated myself to the idea that there is a right fit at the right price for every student. There are roughly 4,000 post-secondary schools in the U.S. To narrow that down to the top 20, or even the top 100, is to shepherd kids along the education path without a complete map.

I feel so strongly about this that I helped start a free charter school in Los Angeles dedicated to “the right fit” principles. We send an average of 80% of every senior class to four-year colleges. That is almost double the 43% national average. 

We have the advantage of being a very small school with an unusually skilled college counseling department. The reality is that in most large school districts, there simply aren’t the resources for proper college advising. Advisers are often working with dozens of students at a time. They’re stretched too thin to give most students the kind of guidance they need.

Students often don’t know about schools like Goucher College in Maryland or Kalamazoo College in Michigan — places that offer an excellent education along with a great experience and often generous financial aid. But they know Yale, Harvard, Vassar and University of Michigan — schools with increasingly diminishing acceptance rates that leave students devastated when they don’t get in.

The lack of proper college counseling means that parents are often on their own when it comes to applying for financial aid. The process is not easy, and I’ve heard of more than a few parents who have thrown up their hands and simply given up even trying to get aid. But the truth is, there’s money out there to help almost every applying student if you know the right places to look and are prepared for the process. It is certainly possible to go to college without accumulating a crushing amount of debt.

I’m hoping that families don’t give up on college. While it might not be easy to find the right school at the right price without proper school counselors, there are resources out there that can help. Colleges that Change Lives, an organization dedicated to helping students discover schools off the beaten path, is a website I always recommend.

College is about so much more than money. It’s about teens getting the time and space to truly grow. Look at the people in your world who are happy. I’m willing to bet that where their college ranked on the U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges list didn’t play any role in that, or even the success in their lives.

It’s time to refocus our priorities when it comes to college. Our kids deserve it. 

Anne Cochran is the founding executive director of Valley International Preparatory High School, a charter/public high school in Northridge, CA. She is the recipient of national college counseling awards including Yale's Educator Award, Colleges That Change Lives’ Counselor Award, and Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation’s Educator of Distinction Award. Her students have received scholarships from institutions including QuestBridge, Gates Millennium Scholars Foundation, Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation and Posse Foundation.