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The next REALITY they need to be taught is what they will be doing with the rest of their lives- this is an important conversation which most parents never have with their kids.

The "Precious Snowflake" Generation (not to be confused with Hillary's adult Snowflakes) has grown up being told "You can do anything", and colleges are more than happy to get ahold of them for four-plus years, soak the parents and taxpayers, and teach them no useful life skills.

Students need to know what they want to do for a living, their aptitude for that occupation, how much their education for it will cost, and how much they're going to make (entry-level, not theoretical dollars) when/if they graduate. What we've had for over a generation is students graduating with few useful skills and aptitudes and loads of useless electives.

I'll always thank my parents for sitting me down annually starting in the tenth grade and inquiring about my future goals and plans, and grounding me in reality. Dreams aren't going to prepare your kids for the real world- don't be surprised when they come back to live with you again because they wasted four years on dreams that had no basis in reality, unable to pay for the everyday costs of life.

Don't count on school guidance counselors to do this- when I informed my"counselor" (useless Faculty Lounge Potato) that I wasn't going directly to college because I wanted to join the Army to gain experience and get college funding, he closed my folder, got up, and walked out of the room- no follow-up, no post-service enrollment information, no "Good Luck", nothing. The reality was that although my parents would have done it to pay for college, I didn't WANT them to have to re-finance the house...they never even mentioned this, but I knew that was the REALITY.

I eventually earned 60 credits to qualify for a military school, and recently got an Associates in my field, only because it was a prerequisite for a certification I wanted- I don't feel any regret over missing the "college experience", which has become, by and large, an extension of high school coddling.