As a high school teacher, I encourage all of my students, from ninth to twelfth grade, to consider how their actions can help them get into college. Some of my students tell me that they have other plans, or that college isn’t for them, but I feel like part of my job is to encourage my students to pursue options that will lead them to a lifetime of learning and growing academically after high school ends. This is the experience I had in high school, and I want my students to have the same encouragement that was a part of my life.
My concern for my students is that I’m setting them up for a lifetime of debt. (See the recent article in The Baltimore Sun titled “Growing Concern for Students Overwhelmed by Education Loans"). The advice that I received when I was in high school was to simply worry about getting into college, and that I could easily pay off the debt later, with a combination of small government-sponsored loans and high-paying scholarships. Well, the world is a different place now, and many students now leave college with considerable debt and decreased means with which they might pay it off.
In addition to encouraging my students to go to college, I think it is just as much my duty to encourage students to take advantage of financial counseling provided by colleges. College is an expensive undertaking and I would hate for any of my students who have worked so hard to get in to have to leave for financial reasons that they could have predicted. I hope that the guidance department at my school is similarly watching out for the seniors as they get into college.
The challenge for me will be to give this advice in a way that still encourages my students to attend college, or pursue some other avenue that will allow them to continue to grow academically.
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