...how much you learn in college depends a lot more on you than the college. A determined party animal can get through the best school without learning anything. And someone with a real thirst for knowledge will be able to find a few smart people to learn from at a school that isn't prestigious at all.
I've had several colleagues, as they send their kids off to college, express concerns over the mounting costs. For some, the costs are even higher, as they send their children off to prestigious schools as well.
Yet some people are questioning whether or not the prestigious schools are all that much better. The quote above is from an article by Paul Graham titled, News from the Front. (HT: Why Homeschool)
It really makes sense, doesn't it? With all the hoopla and competition to get into the best and most prestigious schools, what really matters, once you are in a school, is how you conduct yourself. And it is all the more reason for parents to raise adults and not children. From Melinda, at STR, comes a link to Michael Reagan's tribute to his mother Jane Wyman. Reagan relates how he attempted, as a 10 year-old boy, to get his mother to buy him a brand new 10 speed bicycle. He states,
She said, "If I give you everything you want, and I can afford to do that, you'll grow up to be a 40-year-old child. I build men, not boys. I want you to grow up to be a 40-year-old man."
It's all too easy to hand our children things to make their lives easier. What's really difficult is knowing how to raise them so that they will grow up into productive adult members of society.
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