Customer Reviews

Success Without College: Why Your Child May Not Have to Go to College Right Now--and May Not Have to Go At All

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Success Without College explodes many of the myths about college that abound in upscale suburban neighborhoods where parents expect all their children to go to the Ivy League and thrive. It helps you determine if your child is ready for college, or for a different kind of experience as early as age 15. More importantly, by improving the perspectives of parents, this book will change and reduce unrealistic pressures on youngsters that can make the teenage years difficult. In the process, parents can take satisfaction in helping launch their children onto a more productive path.

Despite the fact that U.S. high schools seem to create poorly educated students, a higher percentage of people leave those high schools to attend college than in any other country in the world. College is expensive, and this is a great drain on families and students. Yet, most of those who go off to attend college will not graduate in 4 years. Many will never graduate, and will receive little of value to sustain them as people and economically. Frequent binge drinking seems to be the main experience that people get at college these days.

A great strength of this book is that it is based in part on personal experience. The author's own son went to college for two years and did poorly. He then went out to work, and began learning how he needed to proceed with his life in the process. For many young people, college right after high school is too soon. You have to be both academically and emotionally mature. More people are the former than the latter. The book has a wonderful quiz that you can use to assess the emotional maturity of your youngster. I thought the quiz was good because it picked up on issues that two of my children had (who actually did complete college in 4 years), which I should have paid more attention to at the time. Perhaps each of them would have gotten more out of college if they had worked or done volunteer work for a year or two first.

The book also addresses what to do with the child who is having trouble with high school. You will also find out about a variety of resources for dealing with emotional problems, learning disorders, and career planning. There are counselors who can help and programs that you can pursue. In many cases these cost money. In other cases (like the Army), they just take investigation.

Given that more young people will not graduate from college than will, you would think that there would be more books about succeeding for those who do not go to college than those who do. It's just the opposite. Whether or not you think your children will and should go to college right away, I recommend you read this book. You may get some good ideas that may change your mind, and make your child's life much better!

If you are like me, you have not done enough thinking about how to prepare your child for life, as well as education. This book is a superb resource to do just that.

My main quibble about the book is that it relies on a few counterexamples to explain how well those without college educations can do. I would have liked to have seen a more systematic discussion about how those who go without college can always outperform the clueless liberal arts major. That would have given the book the necessary legitimacy to make parents feel terrific about exploring the noncollege options.

After you have finished this book, I suggest that you discuss what you learned from it with another parent to help pass along the message. If your child is willing to read, you can have a much better discussion about what to do next if both of you read this book first.

After you have had those discussions and taken appropriate actions, I also suggest that you consider where else you may have misconceptions about being a parent. What should your children be doing to prepare to be effective volunteers? What should they be doing to prepare to become lifelong learners after they leave school? What values will serve them the best? How can they learn to be good spouses and parents? You may be able to make improvements in these areas as well, based on your own thinking and research. Good luck!

Linda Lee's Success Without College is a sobering refutation of the assumption that high school graduates should march straight to the university. Starting with her son's disastrous jaunt into an expensive college, Lee does some soul-searching and concludes that in too many cases college is wasted on people who are not poised to benifit from it. She cites many reasons for not going to college. Among them a lack of maturity, the low rate of college graduation, the culture of hedonism, slackers, and ant-intellectualism, the binge drinking at college campuses, the many students who go for lack of any other alternatives, the outrageous college costs, the "dumbing down" of too many colleges. Lee suggests that young high school graduates might be better served if they take time off and do "character-building" activities such as volunteer work on an Indian reservation, an orphanage, or some such place. Only after someone has matured and is hungry for college learning, Lee argues, should that person go to college. Finally, she points out that many successful people never went to college and that many high-paying jobs only require, at the most, a certificate or a two-year community college degree.

There is much to admire in Lee's critique of Americans' blind march to college. However, some of her arguments seem less than convincing. First, her idea that high school graduates should take time off may result in protracted drifting. These young people, more than ever, may need structure and guidance found in some college environments. Second, the "character-building" activities Lee discusses require a certain emotional maturity, the very thing these young people lack, which is why they're not ready for college in the first place. I'm not sure very many people have the tools to work at an orphanage or a reservation right out of high school. Third, only a small percentage of people have the brilliance to be computer wizards and entrepeneurs. Therefore, I'm not sure these glorious careers can be obtained by a significant portion of the population. Fourth, when Lee wrote this book the economy was booming. She cited Cisco hiring people with two-year certificates at 60 and 70K a year. Since the book's publishing, the stock market has become sluggish and Cisco is probably not hiring as robustly as it did when Lee was writing. Finally, I'm not sure Lee's experience with her son, who by all accounts was a spoiled rich baby, makes sufficient basis for generalizing about the virtues of going to college. Whatever refutations Lee makes about going to college, the fact remains that in this country there is a huge stigma attached to those who don't have a college degree and all too few of us can, like John Cheever or Bill Gates, transcend that stigma.

I am so glad this book came out. From the day I set forth in college, I knew I was not college material. Based on circumstances, I was led to feel inferior if I had not gotten a degree. We have treated college degrees as status symbols when for the most part, we have more to learn about life than how to study for a test in college. The stories the author has about famous people who did not go to college and succeeded anyway made me realize that we all have opportunities to change our destinies. Not having a formal college education would be another excuse for not pursuing a dream.

This book has impressed me with the facts presented. I'm a vocational guidance counselor and I have a hard time recruiting students to take one of our technical/vocational programs. Parents are determined from the day a child is born that that child will graduate from college with a four year degree. As the author so well puts it, very few kids are actually suited for college. This book will help me put together a presentation to my students' parents to help them make a well informed decision about their child's education. I can't say enough about how much I have enjoyed this book and how it will help me in my work.

A great book.I'll have to check it out from the library.Our society's in a heap of trouble if we think that getting a degree is the only way you can get a good paying job.We've become a society of "diplomaism".A society that defines success by that sheepskin that's given to students every year on campuses.Sheepskin that can break families financially,and that can cost over $100,000.Despite what society and the media say,how many of you folks reading this review know of someone(including yourself)who went through all of those loans and grants,and are barely making more than you are(if not less)even though you HAVE NO DEGREE? Don't get me wrong,money's nothing to me,but,colleges all across the nation teach this lie that if you have a degree,you'll be making mad cash,and if you don't,you'll live like a peasant.Let's remember,college is a business.A business that's getting around $200,000,000,000 yearly.It's all a marketing scheme.From the viewbooks,to the good words given about the schools from happy,perky students.A stat that disturbed me was that 66% of high school seniors will enter college this fall,and only 26% will graduate within SIX YEARS!I tried the college route this previous year.HATED IT.I dropped out after a couple of weeks,because I couldn't handle the schoolwork,but I was pressured by my family and society(the media,books,etc.)to come back,so I did come back in January 2000.I barely passed my American Government class,and dropped two other classes.As a matter of fact,I dropped out AGAIN in April of 2000,but my professor called,then pressured me to come back,and like a sucker,I had a guilt trip and came back,only to get a C(which I got only because I passed my final exam with great marks.I originally had a D+).I'm now going to go either into the travel business,or truck driving,to satisfy my passion for travel.And I won't have to worry about paying back thousands of dollars in loans,and feeling like I broke my family economically.Thank you Linda Lee.

College is not going anywhere.

What do you do when your child graduates? You give them an ultimatum: two options, college or job, right? This book gave me peace and saved me from beating myself up over the fact that my child pursued option number two; a modeling career in California this fall.

Creme rises to the top irregardless as shown through the examples of this book. The fact of the matter is people are born with different temperaments, abilities and ambitions. This book aides the exceptance.

My daughter takes on line prerequisites with our local Florida community college from California (she feels as though she would be a total loser if she didn't due to societal programming). I'm apprehensive to pass this book along to her because I'm afraid she will not develope her innate intellectual nature at some point. That makes this book Rated Restricted to parents...first, then maybe your child, but in my case, not. Still, wonderful quick read and talented author.

Knowledge is free, power is money, the feeling of power = priceless. This is for real people who live on the real earth. College pumps out little robots to go back and forth to work every day. I see it all the time. When I am driving around at 5PM once in a blue moon, I see the suites with the cell phone that serous look on their face driving the Honda in rush hour traffic. Well if that is what you want to do when you grow up and make $50,000 a year and a few small vacations per year be my guest. If you get lucky you may not get a divorce like 50% of Americans in the rat race cycle. It's just a cattle race. Id rather grow my enterprise a big as I can because its fun, I enjoy being a leader. This was a great book more people should read it because I do not want to anyone to tell me how lucky I was to be so successful with out college, I am sick of it. Luck has nothing to do with it. With the human body and a brain you should be able to do what ever you want without college. If I wanted to be an accountant ill just walk down the hall and ask one of my employees to teach me and ill give her a raise. This was a good book.

I have not read this book,but I was unfortunate enough to have to read Linda Lee's article in family circle for one of my COLLEGE courses. I do plan on reading the book, but I am so distraught over what I have read so far I must respond. I wonder why she places so much importance on money. For those of you who have not read the article Lee seems to always equate success with money. I did exactly what her son did, I dropped out of college and got a job doing home wiring and telecommunications. I worked hard and became a Manager of two branch offices. I was making 50K with a private office, car allowance, cell phone, shirt and tie lunches, success right? So, now that her son has a job and no degree what happens when he no longer wants to work in telecommunications? What happens when he has a wife and a couple of kids and then decides he wants to change careers? What happens when his company sells out to a conglomerate and his services are not retained? I'm lucky, at thirty I've managed to return to college, thanks to my wife and her family, and I am thankful beyond words that I have the chance. I was trapped, miserable, and it affected every part of my life. And I decided I don't want to be like everyone else. I don't want to live for weekends and those two weeks of vacation a year. Why spend the majority of your life stuck doing something you hate. How many people really love what they do? How many of us just fell into jobs because we needed a way to make money? Why do you suppose 50 percent of marriages end in divorce? Because most of us are miserable! Now think about those 50 percent of marriages that don't end in divorce. How many of those people are togehter simply because they are afraid to get a divorce? Success has NOTHING to do with money. Success is happiness. I've learned that the saying knowledge is power is wrong. In today's world money is power, knowledge is freedom, freedom to do what you want, on your own terms. That's success, being happy to get out of bed in the morning, enjoying your time with your wife and kids. I will never again work a job simply to make money, if I don't enjoy what I'm doing I will have the foundation laid to return to school and do something about it. Without a diverse education that would be impossible. If your child isn't ready for college figure out why and fix it. Remember your the adult, it's your job to make them ready. There is no alternative.

Linda Lee has done a very good thing. She's written a concise and much needed book on why it's not so important for kids to go to college anymore. She ignores the fact that colleges have gotten ridiculously simple with all the grade inflation and silly admission policies and instead focuses on how unambitious and industrious young people can thrive in today's environment without the shackles of a college diploma.

This is a very important book and one I have already gift wrapped and placed in the care of the USPS as a special "present" for my second ex-wife (the supposed mother of my first three children). I've been sending the witch too much of my meager paychecks for the past ten years and she's already started yapping about the "college expenses". Thanks to Ms. Lee, I am very hopeful that instead of the ridiculously overpriced college tuition bills I can get by with this much less expensive "guide" to life without college. Who needs frat beer bashes and sorority panty parties? Not my kids. This book will do just fine. Very Highly Recommended. HHD.