Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion College for Grown-Ups

College for Grown-Ups
By MITCHELL L. STEVENS
New York Times
December 11, 2014

If gifted high school graduates could get stimulating jobs without a college degree, delaying college for a few years or even skipping it entirely could make sense. I don't think most white collar employers are considering high school graduates for such positions, and even internships go to college students.

I completely agree with you, Bostonian.


Honestly, the problem with college at 18 is that most people cannot really manage themselves as "adults" yet at that age, and that college is a veritable carnival midway of 'adult' temptations to navigate while doing so.

It's the worst Candyland game ever, basically. And the most expensive.

College really ought to start at about 25 for the average student. As a professor, it was nearly always the case that the most mentally/emotionally with-it students were: a) parents who were getting an education so as to provide for their children (often single moms), b) military veterans, c) returning students, mostly >30yo.

Now, they weren't always the brightest students in my classes-- and a fair number of them struggled mightily since their preparatory work was years or even decades old and rusty. But they knew things about prioritizing their time and energy that the 17-19yo cohort did not know, and they knew what mattered to them. They had fully developed executive function, and needed little scaffolding from anyone. (Which, to be clear, colleges are mostly NOT in the habit of providing to any students, in spite of what shiny marketing brochures tell parents who are shelling out big bucks to the registrar).


Honestly, a five year hiatus after secondary would do most students a world of good in terms of what they wind up getting out of an undergraduate degree. National service (as used in other places) is a great solution to this problem if only one could get our culture in N. America on-board with it.

Taking a year off (or two) before college is something my DS15 & I are seriously considering for him. He has already expressed interest and I think it would really help his motivation to see what working for minimum age was like. My older brother really wanted to go this route and my parents wouldn't let him, and looking back on it he really wishes he had pushed harder. (It wasn't as common and my parents saw it as choosing not to go to college rather than deferring it.) College as a young adult didn't work out well for him. And I see a lot similarities between him and my son.

The big issue with taking a year or two off in my mind is what you do with it. Not going to college isn't sitting home & playing computer games. It is holding down a job, or going on a gap year program. The problem is most of the gap year programs as as expensive as a year in college.

Just to throw in a slightly contrarian position:

The research on fluid intelligence and working memory consistently finds that they both peak at about age 23. So if individuals postpone college until age 25, undergraduates will be in school during the downslope of their natural capacity to absorb novel ideas and skills, and those who go on to postgraduate study will be attempting to make abstract and creative connections after the major drop-off in fluid reasoning and working memory that occurs at around age 30.

I think we should consider stronger baseline scaffolding across the board for executive functioning during college, and lower the average age of entry for those who are truly 4-year college-oriented, especially if they are moving toward fields that require post-graduate study.

NB: I might have an argument for the reverse in the back of my mind, too.

I second aeh. For certain subjects such as math, it is very hard to learn new things as deeply as you need after 25.

I also think delaying college means delaying being fully independent in life, that has many implications regarding marriage, and kids, etc.

The actual number of people who finish their college degree after the standard 18-22 age of years window is very low.

I think the root of the problem that the college professors are facing is K-12 education--students of cuddled too much in high school and they are not prepared. And some people maybe should not be in a four year college anyway, maybe.

Compulsory service? Conscription? Active draft? Hard labor on a peanut farm? Some may say that volunteering voluntarily is a cherished exercise of liberty and therefore valued differently than being assigned compulsory service.

Meanwhile the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports that the number of college students over 25 has been trending higher than enrollment of students under 25: Figures are not reported separately for highly selective schools.

Cuddled too much? As in the trio of pregnant 14-year-olds mentioned recently on another thread? Or coddled too much... too much scaffolding/support for an individual to become self-reliant?

Typos notwithstanding, there's no physiological evidence that I'm aware of that maturation must happen after 18. In fact there is much evidence that in many times and places it happened, and still happens, much earlier. So the problem isn't that college freshman are too young, but that they are too immature.

As the parent of a child accelerated significantly in school, this is a pressing issue for us. My child must be more mature than her peers if she's going to be accepted into classes with older students. Ditto if she expects to start college early. Obviously there's such a thing as too mature too fast, but at the same time there's no developmental reason not to teach those skills earlier and more rigorously. Many cultures have done so and still do.

Funny, but I think you know that the latter meaning was intended and that this thread is not about teenage pregnancy.

I'd like to see some research on that subject. I'd also like to see if anyone has investigated HG+ people and their ability to learn as they age. I know that that average age of Nobel laureates has gone up over the past hundred years.

Personally, I find myself better able to learn some things in my late 40s than I was in my early 20s. Other stuff that was always very easy for me (e.g. languages) still is. But that's just me.



I agree that K-12 education isn't doing a great job of preparing students for college (especially the bright ones). I don't think that coddling is the issue though. I see low standards and breathtakingly poor textbooks as shouldering a lot of the blame. You should see my daughter's algebra book. Besides having ADHD, it's a dog's dinner of mashed up ideas (e.g. the authors don't seem to know the difference between concepts of algebra and applications of algebra. This leads them present the applications before the students understand the concepts.). Most of the math books published in the last 15-20 years or so have this problem,* and I honestly don't know how anyone could learn algebra or geometry when relying on these books and a course that teaches straight out of the book (which my kids' teachers typically do).

*I collect math books.