“I’ve got to admit, like, I kind of want to go here [Stanford]. I was trying to figure out why it is that a really nice place like this is wasted on young people — who don’t fully appreciate what you got.”
While President Barack Obama’s opening remarks at the White House Cybersecurity Summit on campus last month were geared towards adding a few drops of humor to an otherwise serious gathering, his words also have weight to them.
Why do we “waste” the tremendous opportunities at college on young people?
On this matter, the President hit the nail on the head. Some of the most driven, dedicated and, quite frankly, most appreciative undergraduates I have met on campus are older students outside the traditional 18-22 age range — students with backgrounds ranging from military service to professional athletics to other extenuating circumstances that prevented them from attending college earlier.
The heightened awareness of mental health issues among college students in recent years suggests that the pressures associated with attending college are serious. Ultimately, it is difficult for young students “to fully appreciate what you got” when there are forces pulling them in thousands of different directions. The additional experience and maturity — not to mention time to really discover one’s interests and passions — that comes with age would likely address many of these problems and create a more stable matching between institutions with seemingly limitless opportunities and older students better equipped to take advantage of them.
Stanford — and other universities — should seriously consider breaking out of the seemingly arbitrary model of packaging a college experience into four years centered around the age of 20.
This idea is far from my own. In an initiative to re-think the future of higher education titled “Stanford 2025,” fellows at the d.school proposed a new model called the “Open Loop University,” where you are still admitted to Stanford as a high school student, but have six years over the course of your life to cash it in.
For example, a student could start college at 18 and stay for two years while making lifelong friendships and developing more maturity, before leaving to gain valuable work experience and hone in on particular interests. Then, he or she could later return to school to dive deeper into these areas of passion or complement these interests with a broad range of courses in other disciplines.
With the growth of online education, lifelong learning is more feasible than ever, allowing people to engage in a subject without physically being present on campus. In the future, perhaps college will no longer be the place for 500-person introductory classes where the benefits of attending in-person are practically negligible. It will be a sanctuary to serve students in all phases of life: from fostering friendships and resilience to developing valuable professional skills and learning for the sake of learning with some of the best minds in the field. With six years over the course of one’s life, the college experience can be constantly redefined and allow students to always be able to appreciate what they’ve got.
In addition, universities should also seriously consider targeting and admitting more qualified students outside of the traditional undergraduate age range. If a school really wants to advertise and celebrate the diversity of the student body, how can you ignore age? The interactions between students of different backgrounds and experiences would provide for a better overall experience. I have benefited tremendously from getting to know a number of older students with non-traditional paths to college, and universities should seek to build this conspicuously absent element of diversity.
Obviously, there are several pretty serious drawbacks to these ideas. Logistically, it would probably be a nightmare to keep track of students’ progress and manage details such as degree conferrals, housing assignments and academic curricula. Moreover, the process of cycling in and out of school would likely make it harder to develop meaningful friendships and connections. Nevertheless, the minutiae would resolve itself if institutions committed to changing the system and adopting a new model. The lack of time to connect with other students is a serious concern, but one that would also be mitigated once students become accustomed to the new time frame of higher education.
As I close in on the end of my junior year, I’m beginning to feel my own Stanford mortality. In the past three years, I’ve grown and matured in ways I’d never imagined, but now — just as I’ve begun to really discover my own interests and understand how college even works — I’ll soon follow the path of Adam and Eve and get booted out of the Garden of Eden.
In the end, four jam-packed years of college at a young age doesn’t seem like the best option anymore. We should think about alternatives, because it doesn’t make sense to waste Stanford on young people.
Contact Vihan Lakshman at vihan ‘at’ stanford.edu.