Our Response
Today, the character and culture of College or University attendance is quite different from the way it was two or three decades ago. The costs alone range anywhere from four to ten times higher than they were in the seventies and eighties. In addition, the entire landscape of higher education has gone through a major transformation, including in the most elite and prestigious institutions of higher learning in the United States and the United Kingdom.
The twenty-first century also has ushered in a very dynamic, globalized, and ever changing technological environment with many professions undergoing a vast array of transformations. These rapid transformations in workforce and societal needs create significant challenges for colleges and universities to keep pace in transforming their own educational offerings to meet the very diverse needs of both industry and society as a whole. A large number of prestigious colleges and universities are available in the U.S. and the U.K. Some are resting on their laurels from the past, while others have grown much stronger and more advanced. Many others are embroiled in internal power struggles and unhealthy transitions that tend to create a poor learning environment for students. A few hours of professional, one-on-one consulting and advising would help the student, and parents, get the answers to many of these questions and to identify the right fit, thereby avoiding the many consequences that result from making the wrong college choice.
A College or University education constitutes the most critical decision one can make. It is a minimum four-year time commitment and a $200K to $300K investment up to a bachelor’s degree, subsequently leading to an additional investment of $150K to $300K for a graduate degree, ultimately resulting in a grand total investment of more than one half million dollars.
Clearly, the right college for you is a decision that requires extensive consultation with a nationally recognized academic expert and scholar with an extensive portfolio of accomplishments. It is not as simple as relying on college rankings, newspaper articles and guidebooks. It also is not about taking advanced placement courses, completing an application form, or preparing for the SAT or ACT. Rather, it is about identifying the right college for each individual student. It is about understanding the individual student’s needs and aspirations, as well as his/her skills and strengths. It is about telling the student and his/her parents the real story concerning a particular college or university.
Today, even in the most prestigious and elite colleges and universities the four-year student graduation rates are 85 to 90 percent. Many students leave in the first year after realizing that a particular college, although one of the best, is not the right fit for them. This results in a significant loss of time and resource investment for the student, and their family, which could have been avoided with proper advising.
The critical questions to ask are:
- Given my qualifications, resources, and expectations, to which colleges or universities should I apply?
- Which colleges and universities have done the best job in transforming their curriculum and learning environment to meet the needs of the 21st Century student?
- What are graduation and retention rates, and why are they important?
- What is the impact of a college education on my long-term income?
- How does a university’s level of research affect my education?
- How should I be comparing institutions?
- How can I assess the quality of administrators, faculty, and staff?
- How can I assess the quality of a given program?
- How important is the curriculum?
- What institutions are the most progressive in meeting student’s long-term needs?
Right College For You is not a college admissions counseling service. It is a highly personalized and sophisticated consulting service provided by a senior scholar and university leader with 40 years of progressively responsible experience as a dean, vice president, provost, president and chancellor in both public and private institutions.