A better way for parents to help kids

The parents who spent thousands of dollars and their reputations to get their kids into "elite" liberal arts universities should have done a little due diligence with hiring managers and human resource professionals. They would have discovered that where a candidate for an entry-level job obtained their undergraduate degree is not as critical to the hiring decision as these parents seem to believe.

Notable exceptions are STEM-concentrated schools that administer their own subject-specific proficiency exams to applicants and tend to produce graduates with job-relevant skills.

Hiring a bachelor's degree graduate with little or no relevant work experience for their first job is a crap shoot. There isn't a strong correlation between the prestige of the university and the new hire's job performance in an entry-level position. Because of this uncertainty, most companies are not willing to "pay up" for a BA graduate from an elite school.

These parents also fail to recognize that the school from which a student graduates is rarely, if ever, a factor in his or her applications for subsequent jobs. Hiring managers want to learn about a candidate's performance in their first job and don't care too much about the perceived status of the school from which they obtained their BA degree.

Parents would serve their children's career prospects better by finding post-high school education that would fit their interests, aptitudes, and maturity. This will require parents to put their egos in-check; something these cheating parents were not willing to do.

Randy Harris

St. Charles