The Reality of College
The earlier sections of this manual on the law and accommodations have been written to address parents and professionals. This section is directed to students and parents.
Parents and students spend years negotiating their way through the maze of the K-12 system and often see college shining in the distance like the emerald city of OZ. They hope when they get there that all will be perfect and the great wizard will provide the educational equivalent of brain, heart, courage and home. If you remember the rest of the story, you know the great OZ assigned our heroes a very difficult task to perform before he would grant their requests. In many ways, college is like the great OZ. The image is there but there is much going on behind the scenes and NOTHING happens without the student actively engaging in the learning process.
Parents often perceive the college environment as a safe age appropriate haven for their son or daughter for a couple of years as the young adult gains some maturity. That is one of the purposes of postsecondary education. It is also a documented fact that 40% of college freshmen, especially those away from home, do not perform well academically their first year in college. In fact, many are academically dismissed from their institutions for poor grades. In light of the current state and national economy, that statistic is sobering. Most college students rely on some form of financial aid to pay for their education: Pell, NYS Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), NYS Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities (VESID), student loans, scholarships, etc. Due to the same economic downturn that has caused families to tighten their budgets, these funding entities have had to significantly tighten their proverbial belts. Students who enter college and perform poorly academically for the first year may make themselves ineligible for continued financial aid even years later when they are older and ready to handle the challenges of college. Now, perhaps more than ever, it is imperative to give serious consideration to the question of whether entering college directly after high school is in the student’s best interest. It behooves us to spend some time examining the reality of the adult world and college in particular.