OPEN THREAD: Will you encourage your children to attend your alma mater?

This commenter reminds me a lot of an older version of myself. 

Let’s see… 
1)  No
2)  No (previously, for financial reasons;  but within the past 10 or so years for differences in worldview)
3)  Hillsdale or Spring Arbor University (though, I’d like to look harder at the latter as time goes on), or a combination of a local junior college and then on to a local university. 

Other considerations when doing “due dilegence” on these places:

- If the college is conservative, are they weirdly conservative?;

- If the college is conservative, do they promote a view of leadership based on being winsome?

- I note that Hillsdale and Spring Arbor are listed, along with my own alma mater, in a list of “Top ## Conservative Colleges in Michigan.”  This is almost laughable, except that the marketing ploy that my alma mater uses to attract students and parents .. seems, apparently, to be working.  Which makes me wonder - How are parents supposed to see past the marketing bs?  In my own case, it was a combination of paying attention to the city media for my college and also perusing the back pages of the college newspaper from time to time. 

Another good college that satisfies the considerations for the rut on the other side of the road, would be Cornerstone.  Two of my friends who are Christian professors, have a high view of the school, and in fact, dream about a job offer from that institution.  They are being driven up the wall by the kookiness of their present employers.

No, absolutely not, I would not send my children to my undergraduate alma mater.  In fact I recently had this conversation with my high schooler.  I attended one of the most liberal (even anti-Christian at times) undergraduate schools in America.  It was a valuable experience and if one of my children were to desire to go there he’d probably benefit… but he wouldn’t be doing it on my dime.  Its an over priced hostile education and I don’t contribute a dime to the school and have told them why. 

My teen is interested in a Christian college and I do have the reservations noted in the original post, but it looks like a good match for him and he’s interested in the program they have with Pittsburgh Art Institute for junior year, which would give him a wider worldview for one year.  I think that would be valuable AND a good education suitable to where he feels called. 

In this case, its not about money really, although my alma mater cost in the 90’s what the school he’s considering costs today, so there is a difference… but I’m interested in investing wisely in his education.  Hillsdale (noted above) is a fascinatingly cool model for a school… its just not one that would suit the kid in question.  The second kid… he’s destined for engineering school.  Eeek!  At least that will be a while.

My alma mater??? Ha-ha.  Tuition there (Washington University in STL) is $45,xxx a year, with another $10,xxx tacked on for room and board.  When I started there in 1978, annual tuition was $4,350. 

I have had one go through college already, with three more to follow in quick succession.  Number One Son leaves for Mizzou in August.  It’s not cheap, but it ain’t $55k per year.

I don’t have children, but if I did my answers would be 1) maybe, 2) no, and 3) Hillsdale or Grove City, if I could afford it or if my children received scholarships.

My alma mater (University of Virginia) is presently going through some serious turmoil over the recent dismissal of the university’s president. That’s one reason I answered “maybe.” Another is that even though the faculty is generally liberal, there is a strong Christian witness on grounds. There are several good churches in the area as well.

I honestly wouldn’t have been concerned about sending my not-so-little darlings to my alma mater.  Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, being mainly an engineering school, actually teaches its students to deal with the world as it is rather than as Leftists wish it were and no amount of political dim-wittedness can change the gravitational constant or the decay constant of thorium 232.  The education doled out there is disappointingly narrow, since unlike most majors, engineering crams an entire professional program into four years so there is little time for instruction in the humanities.  Then again, that’s what keeps it safe for Christians, I suppose.  I don’t send them money since they don’t need it.  The price is ridiculous, however (>$50,000/year), and it’s getting pretty near impossible to to get accepted.

Not to worry.  My eldest is getting an excellent education in a solid setting at Wesleyan College in Macon, GA (shameless plug: my little brother - a devout Christian - heads the Philosophy Department) and her younger sister is having a wonderful time in a glorious setting at Sweet Briar College in Virginia.  Neither reports any particular difficulties for Christian students.  Wesleyan even takes in loco parentis seriously - imagine that.  Note also that both schools are single-sex institutions.  Oh and with the scholarship money my daughters were provided, both colleges are cheaper than the state schools here in Maryland.

My child is an adult and I do not send her anywhere.

My alma mater is the University of West Florida, and it is a fine regional state university.

So I’m saying yes, no, n/a.

(Now I did spend 3 semesters at BJU along the way, so I understand the environment that the question comes out of.  But I think most American Anglicans wouldn’t understand the concern.)

1.) No, neither of my children would do well in a giant state institution. 

2.) Yes, unrestricted to my graduate school but but limit my contributions to foreign language a foreign exchange programs.

3.) A school that fits their temperment & career interests.  One child is already out the other will be entering DePauw in August.

I contribute to the University of Southern California and even take part in some of our regional alumni stuff (good group operates out of Minneapolis).

USC has improved greatly as an academic institution in the three decades since I graduated.  Proud of the progress and the way they’ve broken down a lot of old stereotypes as a “University of Spoiled Children.”

As for my kids, the younger one is autistic and he ain’t goin’... the older one is at The South Dakota School of Mines and Technology , a great school and an incredible bargain for engineering types.  High professional placement, lots of great research grants from the military, the government and industry, and the tuition for a resident here is a sweet deal.  If he’d been looking at USC, I’d have been proud, but SDSMT is the perfect match for our guy.

1. If the Lord sent them there, I would not say no.  (Trinity International University, IL)
But I would not encourage it—not because of doctrine or teaching, but because Dh and I already lived through a readjustment period while in our undergrads, and they are currently in the midst of another one.  Too hard to have your major disappear overnight. 

2. No.  For many reasons, the simplest of which is that outside of our tithe, we have very little to give. 

3.  Dd19 feels absolutely that the Lord is calling her to major in Dance.  Currently she is at our local Com. Col. and will continue there for at least one more semester as well as taking pre-pro dance classes in Chicago. She has been accepted at Palm Beach Atlantic, FL, and Hope College, MI.  Both are a little more or less 36K.  Not much financial aid given at this time, so we are in heavy prayer mode trying to discern what the Lord would have us do. Neither Dd nor we wish to take on heavy debt for her education.

I give to the the post graduate program dealing in scientific matters.

Would I send mine there. I think it all depends on the kid. The big party school I went to had a very active campus crusade for Christ going on and a large number of campus ministries back in the day. Our local University now has a very suspect Lutheran-Episcopal ministry that serves Kool-Aid if you know what I mean.

One missionary we know well had the theory that if your child was a solid Christian s/he should go to a secular school that had a good Christian support group so that s/he would be able to learn to share his/her faith.  If the child’s faith, however, was not strong enough, s/he should go to a Christial school where that faith could be supported and strengthened.

Like Daniel Muth, I went to RPI and became a Christian there through the efforts of the Christian group.  It was a very conservative school when I started in 1968, but by the time I graduated in 1972 it had started moving in a more liberal direction.  The turn came pretty quickly.  When I started they were stronly in loco parentis, by the time I left, they denied any such responsibility as they declared the students were adults.

All three of my children went to Christian schools.  And all three were able to tell me that if you wanted to stray from the straight and narrow, you could find a way.

Like “The Virginian,” I attended the University of Virginia, and they are indeed in some turmoil right now.  It is way more expensive, and more selective, than when I went (I was graduated in 1969). A lot of what I valued there is no more - it has more than doubled in size, added lots of land, and lost many traditions.  UVa does have many Christians on the faculty and staff, strong Christian fellowship groups, and a wonderful study center, so if my kids were starting college, I would want them to consider Virginia, but I would not make it a “must apply” school.

I do make occasional small contributions, and will probably continue to do so.

I would also encourage my kids, had I any high schoolers, to look at Hillsdale, Grove City, and any other college that had not taken the federal dollar.  At the very least, I would aim for the smaller, more conservative colleges - and I would make sure that any college they applied to had an Inter-Varsity chapter or other evangelical organization present and active.

I graduated from Capital Univ. in Columbus, Ohio.  It’s a very small ELCA run university and no neither of my kids go/went there.  I only could attend because my mother worked there and one of her benefits was tuition remission.  There was no way my parents could have afforded it.  I occasionally donate a small sum of money.  My daughter Is a MSU grad and the school was a good fit for her. My son goes to culinary school at the local community college as that’s his passion.  Even if we could have afforded Cap. I wouldn’t have encouraged my kids to study there because most profs were looney left Christians in the 80’s so it must be much worse now.  I’d rather have my kids taught by atheists than by faux Christians.

In addition to the institution, the major plays an important factor in how the faith fares:

https://www.vulcanhammer.org/2009/08/05/the-hard-sciences-arent-hard-on-religion/

Although we, like Sarah, don’t have any children, I wouldn’t have a problem sending one to my undergraduate alma mater (Texas A&M), especially if they stuck with engineering.

I would want my kids to go to the school that best fits their strengths.  At the college level, I would encourage them to pursue truth fearlessly but in a spirit of utmost humility, patience, and love and to think for themselves, knowing that they could find God anywhere.  But I would encourage them to maintain a link to a worship community and to serve others.  So I really wouldn’t be worried about indoctrination so much as slipping off into self-involvement.  I would also encourage them, if at all interested, to study abroad.  There’s real value in seeing Christianity in a different language and culture.  One of my best memories from college was going to a high Catholic mass in a medieval German cathedral where I couldn’t understand a word but was totally floored by the mystery and scope of the Holy Spirit.

No.

First of all, it’s not the religious aspect for me. There are many excellent universities where you can get a terrific education that are liberal and not at all religious. The universities where I earned my M.A. and where I am earning my PhD are both secular public schools, but there is a lot of religious life that revolves around them, and there are lots of Christians there. (Being an anti-Christian school, like Vanderbilt has become lately, is a different matter.)

I earned my B.A. at Ole Miss, and though I love my memories of being taken to campus games and visiting Oxford back in the 1980s and early 1990s, things have changed and not for the better. The school was already devolving into something of an ‘animal house’ when I graduated back in 2000, but since then it has become so much worse. Unfortunately, the university has become a hyper-magnet for all sorts of sordid types of people.

I have two friends who married local girls, so they still live, work, and raise their families in Oxford. I wish I could say they were doing well, but in the past 12 years they have become alcoholics because they end up running with this eclectic crowd of fervored dipsomaniacs (perpetual graduate students, ‘live in the moment’ people who have made a lifestyle of high living on Stafford Loans and any other aid they can get, or rich parents who have sent their aging degenerate yearlings to take classes there because they don’t know what else to do with them, etc.)

Also, apparently all sorts of fake ‘libertarian’ groups have spawned up all over Ole Miss, which, when I examined them and talked to some of the members, are just fronts for modernist/feminist/pro-abortion/anarchist indoctrination…while their propaganda would probably fail on my daughters, such persons usually prey upon the weak, ignorant, and resentful. Another friend of mine (who unlike my other two friends, works directly for Ole Miss) when through a divorce, and now has gotten involved with these sick groups, and while he claims he takes their nastiness with a grain of salt, it has had a horrible effect on his mind and his character: there is almost no residue of the person I once knew. So sad.

I want my daughters to go to a school that is (1) solid in its academics, (2) different than what their background is here, (3) has a good community that is based on something else besides entertainment or socializing, and (4) while I won’t require them to attend a Christian university (there are many such schools that, if you look beyond the ‘hymnal facade,’ will disappoint and even abhor you! I work at one such college), I want them to attend a school that has a solid Christian community around it (e.g. Rather than pay extra money for Milsaps which gives a pretense of being Christian but isn’t, I’d rather they attended a place like UT-Arlington in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area which is more economical, the professors are used to working with students from faith backgrounds, and is surrounded by a solid faith community).

Yes, I would; however, only one chose to go to a branch of the University of NM after marriage. I pray that on of my grandchildren will choose to attend.

Asbury University is a school in the Wesleyan tradition that has produced leaders from E Stanley Jones and Dr. Paul Rader MD, former World Commander of the S.A.,  to Diane Knippers, Janice Shaw Crouse and Jim Heidinger, founder and recently retired publisher and Editor of “Good News.” It is fertile ground for any Christian student to firm up their transformation and foundation for a life of informed service in any field or discipline.

Yes, I give yearly to Asbury University. Asbury is among a group of schools including but not limited to Gordon Conwell, Taylor, Wheaton, Azusa Pacific that provide excellent Liberal Arts programs. In the area of Communications, Asbury is the only school providing student interns for the Olympics and their new facilities are state of the art and they are the only Christian school with an Equestrian program and have added these areas without losing a step in the traditional majors.

I don’t know the context of the original thread or post. However, it still surprises me folks act like everything attached with the name of Christ is Christian. Most of the time you get a mix, from those seeking, to those very confused or possessing a poor theology/maturity, to true disciple makers. I hope my kids will be in the later - wherever they go to school. They’ve already seen the confrontation between the public school worldview of sexuality, creation, and Biblical views they have been taught - and discard the former. We need to be focused on making world changing disciples - not conformists. That being said, knowledge that is so off track and blinded by corrupted points of view is something I would be unwilling to invest a dime; instead find a Christian college/university. But I believe one can still enter a secular liberal university or college and emerge a Christian - perhaps setting captives free along the way. I would argue that alumni should seek to become involved in their universities or former schools if they want change. If you don’t, those who are falling head long into spiritual darkness will be the transformers.

Well, I took the hard way through school.  Attended the very large in-state university right out of high school.  Despite linking up and being active with an easily recognizable evangelical fellowship group, I still managed to be academically dismissed after the first year (a .17 GPA is rather hard to rectify).  I had a lot of fun (at first).

I ended up attending my local community college at age 24, after stopping the partying, getting married, obtaining a full-time job, and buying a house.  Amazing how much more seriously I took school once I was paying for it myself.  Obtained my AA, and then on to my BS, and my MBA at a local state school in six straight years.

So, while I would not want my Dd to take my path, I also would not have any qualms with her attending any one of my alma maters, had they been her choice.  However, she had no interest in any of them, and will instead be starting at a smaller state university this fall.  And, while I am not entirely convinced she has made the best choice, I have decided to allow her the freedom to find that out on her own.  After all, I needed to learn from my own mistakes.

Do I contribute to any of my alma maters?  Yes, but I’m nowhere near a big bucks donor.  A few dollars here and there is more like it.

And where would I rather send Dd?  A smaller liberal arts college that is strong in the life sciences and doesn’t have an axe to grind on ANY issue.  Unfortunately, I’m not sure such a place exists.

Our only child did attend our alma mater at his request…he fell in love with it on his first campus visit.  There was also a practical question regarding attending an in-state college in order to gain acceptance at the state veterinary school (all very complicated). He majored in molecular biology and biochemistry and did not have any worldview issues in his major.  He minored in religion, however, and did have to take on one of the more liberal professors (a holdover from our day) whose respect he gained by being able to hold his own in any discussion (old school liberals still valued this).  It is a church related though not particularly “Christian” liberal arts collge.

We do contribute financially to our alma mater, though this post has made me think that we should investigate the current status of the school more closely.

If we did not contribute there, I do not think we would support a different undergraduate college but would just continue our financial support of Trinity and Nashotah.