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College Junk Mail
"People should value education enough that they don’t need to be attracted with flashy brochures."
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to this Commentary!
By Sarah Beth McKay
I’m almost a junior in high school – so colleges know I am getting ready to start the college selection process. Public, private, small, large—it doesn’t matter— it seems every institution of higher learning in the country has chosen to invest in a form of mild propaganda to solicit students: junk mail.
The mail is all the same--the colleges impersonally brag about their academic programs, location, faculty and facilities. In my opinion, the overwhelming number of colleges sending letters like these to me and my peers are wasting the time and energy of the postal service.
I don’t think the letters are at all helpful. They are just like advertisements - biased appeals for attention. Colleges aren’t going to boast about their high student to teacher ratios, bad reputations, ugly campuses, or mediocre sports teams.
I think that the whole concept of colleges advertising to potential students at all is backwards, ineffective and inappropriate. People should value education enough that they don’t need to be attracted with flashy brochures. Admission departments should stop acting like marketing firms.
- Youth Radio Atlanta is produced in cooperation with WABE and funded in part by The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation.
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