On that note, it will be very interesting to see what an experiential education model can do at a public university, especially one admidst one of the greatest cities in the world.

One of the things I learned at Northeastern many years ago was that a student could never earn enough money on co-op to make much of a difference in tuition at a private university. They could keep up with the living costs during the co-op period and that helped slow down the tempo of college tuition payments to famlies that were supporting their kids in college. So, adding co-op (and experiential education in general) has to be presented on the basis of doing a better job at education … and I believe it does just that. After all, that is why one goes to college in the first place - to get the education to get the career, have a better life, …

Now if we can make education more attractive and inspirational, then we also could use that to better attract underserved populations who might not really see themselves in college in the first place. We have to do something to increase the participation of the USA population in higher education. A key point there is price. That is one reason I wanted to try my hand at working at a public university (CUNY Queens College in the fall) where tuition is much lower and therefore much less of a barrier to college-going for most Americans.

I really appreciate your perspective. Since we work together on writing posts for this blog, sometimes I forget you are a Northeastern student.

-Jim

But I see that I misinterpreted what you all meant by “go to college”. It seems I thought she meant help those go to college who want to go, but because of hurdles in life can’t, and she meant help convince those to go to college who don’t find interest in going.

I find the biggest win in enabling those who want to go, but can’t. Maybe we should think about how experiential education can benefit those, as well.