Get Smart About College

Parents and students like to think they're rational when it comes


Parents and students like to believe they're purely rational when they make big decisions about what school to attend and how to pay the bills. But even when people are sure they're looking at all the available evidence with a clear eye, their minds can frame decisions in ways they don't realize—potentially sending them down the wrong path.

The way people think about debt, for instance, may leave them borrowing too little, rather than the right amount. Or it could lead them to pick colleges where they have a worse chance of graduating.

It doesn't help, of course, that decisions about college are mind-numbingly complex to begin with. For starters, a college education is really a joint production between both the college and the student, so "fit" matters greatly. The best college for one student might be a nonstarter for another. Second, both the benefits and the costs, at least for the two-thirds of students who borrow, are extended over a long period of time, requiring a kind of investment perspective.

Moreover, investing in college is not something families deal with frequently, so learning from experience is hard. Reliable information is hard to come by, and decisions aren't reversed easily or without cost; transfer is possible, but it's often expensive and risky.

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