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  • Writer's pictureJoanne Jacobs

It's college, not kindergarten


Photo: Armin Rimoldi/Pexels

Of the three million students who will start college this fall, one million won't make it through the first year on campus or won't return as sophomores, writes Lee Burdette Williams, a former dean of students who now runs the College Autism Network.


Many leave because they're not ready to function without their parents, she writes. Parents and students now expect college administrators to spare them from the challenges of adulting, such as waking up, eating breakfast, going to class and doing the work.


Her advice to parents is to raise their children to take responsibility for themselves long before they show up on campus. "If a student can’t hold down a summer job, or prefers simply not to try, that student is not ready for the hard grind of college classes."

The number of students with mental health challenges has been rising for years — around 44 percent of all college students report symptoms of depression and anxiety. The rate of students taking psychiatric medication doubled between 2007 and 2019, and is now at 25 percent.

If you hear talk about support services on the campus tour, don't believe it, Williams advises. Counseling centers, usually understaffed, are prepared to help with minor problems, but they're not mental-health clinics or addiction centers.


Williams now specializes in helping colleges educate students with autism. Staffers tell her that parents are asking faculty to "avoid criticism of students’ work." They expect extra time on assignments and exams, which they got in high school. "Students seemed conditioned to be helpless," said one woman.


"If students are so fragile that they can’t deal with criticism, or if they can’t meet deadlines, it may be time to reconsider college," writes Williams.


She proposes a “half-step year” for "students who have mental health, substance abuse, or eating disorders, or who are reliant on parents, counselors, and medication to function adequately." That means living at home while attending a local college and learning the skills necessary to leave home.


Others should take a full year to work, volunteer, travel independently -- and grow up.

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13 Comments


Guest
Sep 04, 2022

This is also the reason that many STEM majors (along with business degrees) impose their own set of requirements for entry into the major itself, and a time limit/re-take attempts on

many core classes...

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Guest
Sep 06, 2022
Replying to

Nursing is a joke of a major compared to the rest of STEM. Nurses get their own chemistry, biology classes and do not have to take the hard organic chemistry. Compared to Physics, chemistry, mathematics, or engineering nursing is an easy major. Look it up.

And a nurse is never making the dosing calculation on their own. That is left to the pharmacist who actually have to take the real calculus, organic chemistry, and physics classes.

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Guest
Sep 04, 2022

The problem with taking a year off is that it takes majors off the table. A lazy student will never finish an engineering or hard science degree. But even a good student can be handicapped by taking a year off from academics.

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Guest
Sep 06, 2022
Replying to

But the anecdote was not about finishing but about switching to an easier school and getting a pointless degree. That is not the same as getting admitted to a selective university and then taking a year off and then going back to the same university. Malia Obama did that at Harvard but majored in about the easiest major at Harvard.

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Guest
Sep 04, 2022

Its college, not an inpatient facility. We've had this situation enough in public preK-12 to know what the issues are.

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mrmillermathteacher
mrmillermathteacher
Sep 04, 2022

The last 2 words of your post are the most important.

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