Ecclesiastes U.

Russ, one of our graduate students, forwarded to me a link to a New York Times article on one of my favorite subjects: the pressure on middle class students to go to an appropriately elite private college. For full disclosure, among me and my close family I have plenty of connections to both public and private universities. I appreciate the strengths of each. I do believe that from a strictly utilitarian point of view, the case for having to go to an elite university for a good education is vastly overstated relative to the costs (you can find dueling econometricians who will argue exactly what the effects are on lifetime consumption). What I wanted to emphasize here is the pressure that these highschoolers feel. Is this coming from parents, teachers, or peers? What does this say about our economic values? Has this become a "designer brand" issue? And, in a question I will repeat frequently is this blog, is there any evidence that Christian parents look any different than the general population in this regard?

Having said this, I don't buy into attempts to pigeonhole specific checklists of Christian behavior. I don't think Jesus would either. Doug and I have kicked around the following question: Suppose somebody just outright gave us a classic Jaguar... should we keep it, or should we sell it and give the money to the poor. My reading of both the Wisdom literature and Jesus teaching is that there is no yes or no answer to that question, or to the question as to whether Christians as such should promote a less tournament-based approach to college choice. However simple we claim our lifestyle to be, we run the risk of self promotion, and Jesus would tell us that what we have done for ourselves is not enough, there is always more. However, I hope that Christian parents advising their kids would contemplate the "why" the arguments they are making. The evidence that an elite college substantially affects your lifetime income continues to be debated. The evidence that it makes you a better or more joyful person is non-existent.