Making Money Off of Students

TheBizofKnowledge ^ | June 22, 2006 | Dr. Bill Belew

[G. Stolyarov II]

How many ways can you think of to make money off of students?

Well, here's another.

I read a report the other day where an independent college counselor in Oregon charged up to $36,000 per student to just help him get into college -- no guarantee!

Holy cow! I am definitely in the wrong business. Well, I might be in the right business (education), but I am doing the wrong thing.

No matter that the price of college tuition, not to mention room and board and flights back and forth for the holidays and dorm furnishings and cars and and and...

Parents are now willing to shell out as much as a year's tuition just to help the student to maybe get into the college he wants.

It is estimated that as much as one fourth (22%) of college freshmen have used a counselor/advisor, and many of them started as early as the eighth or ninth grade.

Some of these counseling services even offer 'boot camps' for a cool $8,000 or so.

One former admissions counselor at a very well-known basketball playing school in North Carolina that is not North Carolina State -- okay, it's Duke -- charges up to $200 an hour to try to figure out what will make admissions counselors fall in love with your kid.

Aren't we all happy now that the non-traditional universities are charging so much money that not only can we not afford to send our kids, we cannot even afford to prepare our kids to be rejected by these state and private colleges.

What do you think about that?

[G. Stolyarov II]

It seems that there is no end to the lengths to which many of today's American parents are willing to go to get their children into desired colleges; such is the prestige conferred by a college education. Perhaps such expenditures are imprudent; perhaps not everyone is suited for a college education; perhaps the people who should strive for one are the people who can get into colleges without paying money for special preparation. It is even possible that people who are unsuited for college would be materially far better off in not pursuing it altogether and instead concentrating their attention on getting extensive job experience from an early age. See Dr. Belew's blog at TheBizofKnowledge