Blogs:

Just like every other ethnic minority, the American Jews also strongly believe that university or college education is very essential for social advancement, economic success and civic participation. There is evidently a disproportionate representation of Jews in the faculty and as mega donors and donors though higher education institutions compete strongly for the Jewish students.

This successful equation is threatened to a great extent and has a great impact on the Jews by many changes that include out of touch values and outlandish costs. At the private institutions, there was a 23% rise in the cost of higher education between the years 1997 and 2007. Similarly, public institutions faced an increase of 30% between the same years.

All the extra money collected by these institutions is going into providing luxury accommodation for students and in enhancing the numbers of administrators. This in turn increased the spending on administration drastically.

Federal government funds most of these costs offering at least $100 billion in student loans. This is a huge amount as compared to $10 billion private loans. With growing interest rates and unemployment rates, many students today are in a practical mess and are unable to repay their student loans. Especially for Jewish parents, the challenge is quite obvious as some have already trying to help their children by extending themselves on day schools.

Commitment plays a major role in determining the extent of investment in day schools. Jewish students studying in college too often find themselves at odds with the values in existence there. There is widespread contempt for Israeli students even among the administrators that force them to give up their country in order to lead a progressive campus life.

Most of the campuses exhibit hostility towards strong beliefs including religious beliefs. Jewish values are not really supported just as American values are not on the campuses and this creates an unsupportive environment for the Jewish students.

This makes us wonder what exactly they can do about this. The first step of course is to accept the situation per se. It is important to differentiate between the private universities and colleges that provide mediocre education to kids even while charging a fortune. It is a good idea considering other options such as state institutions and community colleges.

The best solution for Jewish parents is to ask what is best for their child and choose the institution that best fits the child’s values, interests and personality. They must resist the established norm that it is essential for every Jewish American kid to go to college.

The important thing here is to determine what these institutions offers Jewish kids in terms of education, how the parents are going to pay for it and whether the effort is actually worth it in terms of job opportunities.

Today, in fact, many influential people are giving a long, hard look at the higher education scenario and definitely are not impressed with what they see. According to Clarium Capital’s founder Peter Theil, administrators at universities are nothing but subprime mortgage brokers. They drag you into huge debts by selling you a story that it is an investment for the future.