Experience provides a lesson in higher education

For years the words “junior college” have been the academic version of the bogeyman in my house, the threat hung over recalcitrant children avoiding homework. “Pull those grades up!  Do you want to end up in junior college?”  I spent an entire summer hounding my daughter to fill out scholarship applications.  “If you’re not even trying to get scholarships,” I scolded, “you’re making a choice to attend junior college. Is that what you want?”

I know junior college has its defenders.  Friends and relatives assured me that it was a fine beginning to their academic careers. Many of my former students attended junior college before transferring to universities.  Some earned their Associates’ degrees and moved on to decent jobs.  It’s been a path to success for many.

I had a pretty strong negative bias, though.  I’d heard horror stories of difficulties getting into classes, of students who took five years to finish a two-year program, of an atmosphere that was more conducive to partying than studying.

Frankly, I admit to being a snob about academics. I went to a four-year college, and always assumed my daughter would do the same.  After all, I prepared her for school since babyhood; she mastered the alphabet before she conquered potty-training. I never believed she would do anything other than sail through high school, be showered with scholarships to prestigious four-year universities, and live out the kind of college life featured in television sitcoms.  I pictured her forming lifelong friendships with her roommates, traveling across campus in a pack of laughing girls whose brilliance was as evident as their beauty.  I filled her brain with this vision from an early age. I imagined myself owning coffee mugs and hoodies proclaiming me to be the “Proud Mom of a University of Wherever Student.”

We took the obligatory college tours and pored over course catalogues. Even though my daughter’s dream universities were out of our economic reach, I was certain that financial aid would come to our rescue.  After all, that plan worked out well for me a few decades ago.

When acceptance letters rolled in, we were elated, only to be crushed by the ensuing financial aid letters.  One school offered us the opportunity to take out student loans — $50,000 per year.  We had to sit down with our daughter and break it to her that we could only afford one college, a tiny school in Oregon that offered her a complete scholarship.

We would still have to pay housing costs, but the sacrifice would be worth it.

We installed her in the dorms, and I got my “Proud Mom” coffee cup. I bragged about her; maybe it wasn’t Harvard or Yale, but it was a university and she was there on a scholarship.

She hated it.

I insisted she stick it out for a whole school year, at the end of which it was clear she needed to come home and pick a different path.

In the absence of another alternative, she enrolled in Southwestern College.  I was embarrassed at first; after all the years I’d spent disparaging junior colleges, my daughter walked away from a university to attend one. I was quiet about her homecoming; it felt like a parenting failure. So much of parenting, however, is remembering to raise the child I have rather than the child I dreamed up in my imagination.  I gritted my teeth and reminded myself that attending any school is better than dropping out, and that learning when to change paths is part of maturing.
As the school year progressed, I was pleasantly surprised.  The local junior college is cheaper and close to home, which is easier on our bank account.  I enjoy watching my daughter interact with people of all ages, varied socio-economic groups, and multiple ethnicities.  Older adults, students who are raising their own children, English learners, 19 year olds without a clear plan, and those who excel academically meld fairly seamlessly on campus. My daughter has access to a wide variety of classes, and a counseling department adept at meshing together a comprehensive plan from a mishmash of transcripts and scores.  She enjoys the school and is thriving, and I am relieved.

I’m embarrassed that I judged junior college so harshly.  I’m mortified that I may have let anyone – my students, their parents, and my own children – believe that there is something shameful in not going straight to a four-year university.

As I watch my younger child progress, I’m aware that there’s a very good chance he will attend junior college as well.  While I probably won’t buy a “Proud Mom of a Junior College Student” mug, I’m a little more at ease with whatever academic path my children choose.

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