Choosing College

How to Make Better Learning Decisions Throughout Your Life

Michael B. Horn, Bob Moesta

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781119570134
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Secondary Education

Cut through the noise and make better college and career choices

This book is about addressing the college-choosing problem. The rankings, metrics, analytics, college visits, and advice that we use today to help us make these decisions are out of step with the progress individual students are trying to make. They don't give students and families the information and context they need to make such a high-stakes decision about whether and where to get an education.

Choosing College strips away the noise to help you understand why you're going to school. What's driving you? What are you trying to accomplish? Once you know why, the book will help you make better choices.

The research in this book illustrates that choosing a school is complicated. By constructing more than 200 mini-documentaries of how students chose different postsecondary educational experiences, the authors explore the motivations for how and why people make the decisions that they do at a much deeper, causal level. By the end, you'll know why you're going and what you're really chasing.

The book:

• Identifies the five different Jobs for which students hire postsecondary education
• Allows you to see your true options for what's next
• Offers guidance for how to successfully choose your pathway
• Illuminates how colleges and entrepreneurs can build better experiences for each Job

The authors help readers understand not what job students want out of college, but what "Job" students are hiring college to do for them.

Part I
Introduction

Chapter 1
Is This Book for Me?

If you are thinking about whether you should get more education or where to get it, this book is for you.

But this book isn't your typical guide to schools. It's designed to help you better understand yourself and your current situation.

ASK THE RIGHT QUESTION

If you aren't currently considering more education, as you read you might learn that it's just what you need to make progress in your life. And if you're sure that more education is the right next step, you might surprise yourself and discover that it isn't.

Many books focus on the process of getting into school or how to rank different schools based on their features. This book doesn't tackle those questions.

Instead, if you are considering getting more education, this book will help you answer a more foundational question first. That question is why?

Why are you seeking more education in your life? Or why should you? What is the progress you are trying to make?

Once you know the answer, you will be ready to make a better choice – and making a good choice is more critical today than ever before, as the cost of college has risen and a mistake can be crippling, but the rewards can be life changing. In today's complex world of choosing college, you need every possible edge you can get.

If you're willing to put in just a little time and be honest with yourself, this book can give you that edge.

We've learned that there are many reasons people go back to school. And there are more people in situations just like yours than you could have ever imagined who are struggling just like you.

YOU COULD BE STRUGGLING BECAUSE…

You are in high school and stressed out over the college admissions process.

You know exactly which college you want to attend, but understand that college admissions can be like a lottery and you aren't sure whether to apply to “safety” schools.

You feel that your parents, friends, family, school, or employer are pushing you to go to a school that doesn't excite you.

You feel like you're just going through the motions as you apply and that education is the next logical step in your life.

You're unsure whether college – or any education at all – is the right next step.

You feel stuck – at home, in your town, in your job, or in a relationship – and that going to school would provide a good escape.

You are in a rut at work, know what you want next, and understand that you need more education to get there.

You are in a rut at work, don't know what you want next, and think education could help you figure it out.

You're ready to take the next step in your career and know what education you need to get there.

You are late in your career and wish you had pursued a dream earlier through more education.

You are at a comfortable place in your life and ready to learn more.

You have been out of the workforce, want to get back in, and think going back to school could help.

In all of these situations and many others, you have a struggle. You're trying to figure out what's next. And we can help you.

WHY THIS BOOK CAN HELP

This book can help by giving you the language to understand the outcome you are seeking in your situation. It will also give those around you, like your parents, the language to understand what you are going through so they communicate on your terms, not theirs.

How? Because we interviewed and interrogated people to collect more than 200 detailed stories of individuals making choices just like yours. And then we surveyed well over a 1000 more students to learn about their choosing process, too.

We didn't collect stories from just anybody. We collected them from people resembling nearly everybody.

We talked to people who chose four-year schools, two-year schools, coding bootcamps, online schools, and more. We interviewed women and men of all races. We talked to students who were under 18 all the way up to students who were over 60. Some of the students we talked to already had a college or even a master's or PhD degree. Others had only a high school diploma or a General Educational Diploma (GED). Some were the first in their family to go to college. We talked to both students who attended school full-time, as well as those who worked while they attended. The students we talked to came from wealthy, middle-class, and low-income families.

The one thing they had in common? They were choosing whether and where to get more education.

We didn't just collect their stories. Once we had them, we analyzed them to learn why people were choosing school. We discovered what was driving each person to seek more education and what success in each situation looked like – what we call a “Job to Be Done.”

We discovered that there are five “Jobs to Be Done” for which people choose college. That's right. After collecting over 200 stories and surveying well over a thousand students, we found just five Jobs.

People choose school to:

1. Get into “their best” school
2. Do what's expected of them
3. Get away
4. Step it up
5. Extend themselves

Sounds simple, right? Well, it is…and isn't.

Each “Job” is filled with lots of underlying forces and reasons that shape people's decisions.

Some of these reasons are functional considerations. For example, if I get another degree, I'll get a raise that justifies the cost.

But we're not robots. We typically don't do things just for functional reasons. More often than not, the forces acting on us are emotional or social. For example, all of my friends are going to college, so maybe I should, too. Or, I really want to challenge myself to see if I can do this.

After all, the choice to get more education – or where to get that education – is complicated.

There are many forces tugging on us in all directions. We are pushed and pulled by our dreams and aspirations, by what people in our lives tell us and do, by society's expectations, and by basic needs. From a young age, some just assume they will go to college after high school. Others don't think of college until much later. For many of us, our decisions are anchored early on by sports allegiances, family ties and stories, formative educational experiences, geographic considerations, financial matters, and more.¹

But you already know that, or you wouldn't be reading this book.

That's why we call your motivations for going to college “Jobs” rather than just “reasons” or some other name. A “Job” captures the set of reasons that cause you to do something, along with your circumstances and a clear understanding of what success looks like in that context. In the book, we capitalize the word “Job” whenever we are referring to a “Job to Be Done” to avoid confusion from the everyday usage of the word “job” – a paid position of employment – which many suggest is the primary reason people go to college today (spoiler alert: it's more complicated than that).

Bob Moesta, one of this book's coauthors, created the Jobs to Be Done theory. It is more than just theoretical. Understanding human behavior – what people actually do, not just what they say they will do – can help people make better cho...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Foreword: Helping You Make Progress
• Part I: Introduction
• Part II: Helping Learners Make Better Choices
• Part III: Helping Educators Design Better Choices
• Part IV: Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Notes
• Index
• End User License Agreement