Last spring I was driving a recent college graduate to lunch to celebrate the completion of his degree. He had a very difficult four years of college and was excited about the next chapter of his life story. I asked him if he was graduating with much debt. “I’m one of the lucky ones,” he responded. “I’m only graduating with $50,000 of debt from student loans. Many of my friends have a lot more debt than me!”

What? I almost drove the car off the road. $50,000! I knew the type of degree he had earned, and I knew of his plans for graduate school. I couldn’t imagine being 22 years old, carrying that much debt. And he is one of the lucky ones?

This conversation was eye opening. It made me more attentive to the reality of debt most college students face. To my surprise…

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Is your son or daughter planning to go to college? Do you assume that someone, maybe a guidance counselor, will help him or her get into a college? Are you confused by the college admissions process? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, I highly recommend Crazy U: One Dad’s Crash Course in Getting His Kid Into College (Simon & Schuster, 2011) by Andrew Ferguson. It is an entertaining and engaging read, combining a good blend of laugh out loud humor and informative advice.

Ferguson writes about his experience walking through the process with his son. “For Americans who had gone to college in the fifties, sixties, or early seventies, a process that had seemed rather straightforward—find a school, preferably nearby, figure out how to pay for it, leave home, study, flirt, party—now appeared unexpectedly elaborate and crucially important, complicated by a bewildering array of plausible options and eager come-ons. Parents seemed slightly stunned, and then uneasy, and then confused.” As a journalist and parent, Ferguson was compelled to write a book to help eliminate the confusion. He explains, “For every piece of advice or information a parent or child receives while applying to college, there is an equal and opposite piece of advice or information that will contradict it.”

What’s most appealing about this book is that Ferguson isn’t afraid to challenge the assumption that everyone should go to college. Or even, that one has to go to college to be successful. He challenges readers to consider why they want their child to go to college and whether or not a bachelor’s degree is the best way to meet their aspirations. Ferguson is especially concerned about the cost of college and wants to prevent parents from spending too much money on something that may not ultimately deliver what they want: a child with marketable skills and job prospects. Crazy U is worth reading by anyone trying to sort through the college admissions process and the proper place of education in the lives of young people.

WATCH A VIDEO WITH THE AUTHOR AND HIS SON

“We have a choice. We can minister in the world we wish we had. Or, we can minister in the world we do have.” Those words have stuck with me from a conference I attended many years ago. The speaker was talking about the church and was challenging church leaders to examine more closely the changes in the world around us and the actual lives of the members of our congregations. Simply put, according to the speaker, the church was doing ministry in a world that no longer existed. On that day, I remember making a commitment to be attentive to cultural trends, to the shape of youth culture, and to the stories of the young that I am privileged to hear. If the Gospel is going to make a difference in young peoples’ lives, then my hope is to truly understand and empathetically embrace students.

Tim Clydesdale is a sociologist at The College of New Jersey. Not too long ago he had a similar realization about the state of higher education. He may not have used these words directly, but after studying students during their “first year out” of high school, Clydesdale reached a similar conclusion: college and universities can teach the students they wish they had or the students they do have. Clydesdale reports the findings of his research in his book, The First Year Out: Understanding American Teens After High School (University of Chicago Press). Here’s what he learned about the majority of today’s students…

Read the rest of this article at Faith On Campus.