College Derails Retirement Plan

Friday, April 7, 2006

Page 15

At The Side Bar (Column)

College Derails Retirement Plans

By J'AMY PACHECO

There are many advantages to having a child later in life than most. Oh, sure, it felt awkward being old enough to have parented most of the students in the childbirth classes we attended, but my husband and I got over it quickly. For the most part, I’m glad we waited until we had so much of our lives behind us before we brought our baby girl home a decade ago.

But it occurred to me recently that there is one disadvantage. We’re of the age that we should be preparing for eventual retirement. Instead, I’m worrying about college.

There is no question that my daughter will attend college. She decided in first grade that she would grow up to be a Disney Imagineer, and has never wavered from that commitment. She also decided that she would follow in her grandma’s footsteps and go to engineering school at the University of Southern California. No junior college for this up-and-comer — she’s going to wear cardinal and gold and be a Trojan.

I’ve known this was coming for a long time. In fact, driving to a science center in Los Angeles one afternoon, I remarked that we were passing the USC campus. My daughter turned to her best friend and very matter-of-factly said, “That’s where I’m going to college.”

College seems a long way off for the little girl who still makes deposits with the tooth fairy. So I confess I’ve kept thoughts of college shoved to the back of my mind.

Until last week, when my fourth-grader brought home an assignment in which she was to write a single paragraph outlining what she believes a student needs to get into a good college. I thought that might make for some interesting reading. It did.

She wrote:

“In order to get into a good college, I think a student needs a lot of different things. The most important is good grades. I think this is important, because if you have F’s in all of your classes, then you are not going to do good in college and are just wasting the space.”

I thought that sounded good. It surprised me a bit, because she’s never attended a school where students receive A’s and B’s. If they’re really good, they get fives and E’s. If they’re not, they get ones and U’s. But I liked her perspective.

She next wrote about the importance of being in clubs and doing community service projects. It is, she observed, important to do those things to stand out from those who might get good grades but do little outside of school.

I found that observation interesting, coming from a little girl who doesn’t belong to a single club. Fortunately, community service is a requirement at her school, so she’s covered in that department.

“It is important to have leadership experience because the school might need you to lead school projects or class projects,” she continued. “If there were two people who had exactly the same application except one had more leadership experience, the one with more leadership experience would probably get in because they are probably more responsible.”

My daughter earned the nickname, “PowerPoint Princess” by teaching some older students how to do PowerPoint presentations in school. If that doesn’t count as leadership, I’m hopeful that at least her bossy nature will help her get by.

“I think you also should have a good personality, be happy and good natured and believe in yourself because if you come into school saying, ‘I don’t want to be here. I don’t like it here,’ then you’re not going to get anything done and you’re not going to make any progress and you’re wasting space at the school,” she wrote. “Then you’ll get bad grades in college and that makes the school look bad.”

She next stressed the importance of a good attitude, and then moved on to the part that really got me:

“But one of the most important things that you need in college only has five letters. MONEY!

“You see, I’m planning to go to USC and my mommy said, ‘Either you need to get a good job, a scholarship, or marry a rich guy!’”

It’s hard to believe that in just eight years, we’ll be watching our little girl ride away in cardinal and gold. It’s harder to believe that we’ll be sending our retirement checks to USC rather than our travel agent.

So I guess I’d better get busy working on a college plan. I wonder where I can find a pleasant wealthy family with an adorable son…