The crossroads of higher education

At one point in Lenox’s history, there were several preparatory schools. For one reason or another, they went out of business. They included Lenox School for Boys, Foxhollow School, Cranwell Preparatory School and the Windsor School for Girls.

“Like Lenox School, these were small boarding schools serving students from throughout the northeast, occupying campuses that were once grand estates established during the Gilded Age in The Berkshires,” according to one report.

Jumping to higher education, today some graduates are hitting a brick wall on graduation. They have a degree, but nowhere to turn to pay back the loans they secured when they graduated from high and prep schools.

Alternatives are being voiced. No longer can parents demand that their child go to college just for the sake of postponing entry into the military or some type of personal goal (entrepreneurship) which may or may not develop from a hobby into a full fledged venture of success.

Then there is the ongoing question of academic status and the increasing educational costs to a family. The loan figures today are astrinomical.

While we at The Berkshire Beacon, as a weekly newspaper, should carry the changes in higher education, explore the visions of college and university presidents and be ever-mindful that tomorrow’s graduate still needs to be nurtured and listened to by parents, who only want the best for their child.

Today, parents needs to listen to their children, noting that, as teenagers, they are developing their own goals and dreams. It is no longer the parents’ dream, although, who wouldn’t want to see their children walk up on stage, be announced and handed their diplomas amid the applause for their children’s achievements. For many this will happen, for some it will not.

Society is at the crossroads of higher education. Hopefully some of these educational writings will be of value to our readers going forward.

Posted by George C. Jordan III on March 7, 2013. Filed under Editorials,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry